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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

GEORGE OTIS SMITH, Director 

Water-Supply Paper 222 



PRELIMINARY REPOUT 

ON THE 

GROUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN 
VALLEY, CALIFORNIA 



BY 



WALTER C. MENDENHALL 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1908 




Class QB \0 9S 
Book ^ 2H\^ , 



DEPAETMENT OF THE INTERIOR 
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

GEORGE OTIS SMITH, Director 



h 



Water-supply Paper 222 V 



PRELIMINARY REPORT 



ON THE 



GROUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN 
VALLEY, CALIFORNIA 



BY 



WALTER C. IMENDENHALL 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1908 






CONTENTS. 



Page, 

Introduction 3 

Conditions leading to present investigation . . 5 

Geography of the valley 9 

Geologic outline 11 

The rocks of the valley borders 11 

Origin of the present valley surface " 13 

Soils 15 

Surface waters 16 

Underground waters 19 

Value for irrigation 19 

Origin of the ground waters 24 

Underground circulation 25 

Quantity of ground waters 26 

Accessibility and availability 27 

Development of ground waters -^27 

County notes 29 

Kern County 29 

Tulare County. 33 

Kings County 37 

Fresno County 39 

Madera County : 42 

Merced County 44 

Stanislaus County 47 

San Joaquin County 49 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



J Page. 

Plate I. Artesian areas and ground-water levels in the San Joaquin Valley, 

California ' 8 

2 



NOV 4 1908 



'RELIMINARY REPORT ON THE GROUND WATERS OF 
THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 



By W. C. Mendenhall. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The agricultural situation in that part of the United States known 
as the Southwest is peculiar in that within it consumption tends con- 
stantly to exceed production. This is due to the large areas of desert, 
unsuited for agriculture but supporting many other industries. The 
entire irrigated acreage in the 11 arid States lying for the most part 
west of the crest of the Kock}^ Mountains was 7,539,545 acres at the 
time the Twelfth Census was taken in 1889. Since that date the 
irrigated acreage has been greatly expanded, and through the opera- 
tion of the reclamation law and the impulse given by it to private 
enterprise that expansion will continue; but the population also has 
grown, and this growth in the future will be even more rapid than it 
has been in the past. 

In the States of Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico the mining 
industry becomes yearly of greater importance, and the influx of 
people engaged in it is increasing correspondingly. The grow^th of 
trade with oriental countries and the development of the mineral 
resources of Alaska have resulted in great accessions to the popula- 
tion of Pacific coast seaports, particularly those about San Francisco 
Bay and Puget Sound, and in greatly increased demands for food 
products. Southern California, as that portion of the State lying 
south of the Tehachapi Mountains is called, is receiving "rapid recog- 
nition as a playground for the people of the entire United States, 
and of the thousands of tourists who visit this area each year many 
become permanent residents. 

Of the areas in the Southwest wdthin which food products for its 
cities, its tourist centers, and its mining regions must be raised, the 
largest and most promising is the interior lowland known as the Great 
Central Valley of California. The southern segment of this lowland, 



4 GKOUND WATEKS OF SAIsT JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

the San Joaquin Valley, contains 7,360,000 acres, of which but 
750,000 were under irrigation in 1899, and probably not more than 
1,125,000 acres are irrigated at present. Southern Calif ornia contains 
a million acres of land that would be cultivable if water were applied 
to it; yet in this region, where all the water resources are utilized, 
but 225,000 acres are under irrigation, and the remaining area is non- 
productive or yields only a small and uncertain crop through dry- 
farming methods. 

Furthermore, the density of population in the irrigated valleys 
south of the Tehachapi means the consumption there of practically 
all the staple food products raised. Fruits, especially the citrus 
varieties, are grown for export, and in some years more grain is pro- 
duced than is necessary for local needs; but in general the demand in 
this area for food staples is in excess of the local supply. 

The Imperial Valley, in southeastern California, promises to become 
a very productive area through the utilization of Colorado River 
water, and many other sections might be mentioned whose acreage 
will increase the total area under irrigation, but all of them together 
are smaller than San Joaquin Valley, which, with that of the Sacra- 
mento, must become the chief agricultural district of the Southwest. 

The agricultural development of this valley is controlled by the 
distribution of rainfall, the character of the soils, and the possibility 
of applying other water than that which reaches the valley as a direct 
result of precipitation upon its surface. Its extreme southern end, 
in the vicinity of Bakersfield, is strictly arid; the average rainfall 
there being less than 5 inches. Precipitation increases gradually 
toward the north, until at Red Bluff, in the northern end of Sacra- 
mento Valley, the annual rainfall averages 25.7 inches. Intermediate 
areas receive an amount of precipitation intermediate between these 
two extremes; but south of San Francisco Bay the available records 
indicate a rainfall of less than 16 inches, and over the greater part of 
this area of less than 12 inches — an amount that is insufficient to 
insure crops, even of grain, and is entirely inadequate for the other 
diverse food crops which a dense population demands. 

The progressive increase in aridity from the northern toward the 
southern end of the valley trough prevails to an equally marked 
extent east of the valley, in the mountain areas from which its surface 
waters are drawn. The total run-off from the Sierra, according to 
the best available records, is about 11,500,000 acre-feet annually. Of 
this amount, 3,000,000 acre-feet are supplied by the streams from 
Kings River southward and 8,500,000 acre-feet by the streams north 
of Kings River. The combined drainage area of the streams from 
Kings River southward is 5,143 square miles; that of the streams 
north of Kings River is 7,543 square miles. That is, a southern por- 
tion of the Sierra, whose area is nearly seven-tenths as large as the 



IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT. O 

northern portion, yields but one-third as much water in the form of 
stream (Uscharge. Hence in the south end of San Joaquin Valley 
the acreage which is irrigable by the use of surface waters is very 
much less than that in the northern end of the valle}^, and the area 
available for development here is correspondhigly greater than that 
available farther north. 

The question of water supply is, of course, not the only one that 
confronts those who desire to see the development of the San Joaquin 
Valley proceed rapidly, although it is properly regarded as the most 
pressing. The quahty of the soil, particularly with reference to the 
presence of hardpan or of alkali, is of the utmost importance. Exten- 
sive alkaline areas exist along the axis of the valley and part way up 
its eastern slope, especially at points where the ground waters He 
close to the surface, and hardpans of at least two types underlie some 
of the higher and otherwise most valuable lands. These soil problems 
are being studied systematically by the soil experts of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture^ and the reports that are issued should be supple- 
mented as rapidly as possible, until definite infofmation as to soils is 
available for the entire valley. 

CONDITIONS LEADING TO THE PRESENT INVESTI- 
GATION. 

The conditions already outlined — namely, the great actual and the 
much greater prospective importance of the San Joaquin Valley as 
an agriculturally productive center — ^have led during the last decade 
to greatly increased interest in the possibility of adding to the acreage 
under irrigation, and hence to the output in food products. 

Irrigation enterprises, like those of other industries, invariably pass 
through a pioneer stage, in which only the most easily accessible 
resources are utilized. In this stage the methods of application of 
water are wasteful, the land holdings are large, and the agricultural 
output is low. Only later, when the population becomes much more 
dense and the need of greater output is clearly recognized, do methods 
so improve that the ratio of output to area, to resources, and to invest- 
ment becomes such as to satisfy economic demands. 

In Southern California irrigation methods have been carried to a 
greater degree of refinement than in any other section of the United 
States. When irrigation began here, during the first third of the 
nineteenth century, short, crude ditches were constructed by which 
the waters utihzed were diverted from the lower courses of the 
streams to near-by lands upon which they were turned, and the only 
products were grain and pasture, by which the flocks and herds were 

a Lapham, Macy H., and Heileman, W. H., Soil survey of the Hanford area, Cal.: Full operations of 
the Bureau of Soils for 1901, U. S. Dept. Agr. The results of similar surveys are available for areas 
about Bakersfield, Fresno, and Stockton. 



6 GROUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

carried through the dry season. Such methods were in vogue until 
the late sixties and early seventies, when American settlers entered 
the country and attempted to utilize lands that had been regarded as 
entirely wortliless. These settlers brought with them capital, and 
constructed their ditches on higher lines and in a much better manner 
than did the old Spanish zanjas. They applied water much less lav- 
ishly, to larger areas, and with much better unit results, and so by 
continued improvements of this type all of the surface waters were 
finally utilized to the best advantage. But settlers continued to 
flock to the region, and attention was then turned to the underground 
waters, which were developed at first only to supplement the surface 
supplies. Such reservoir sites as were available were also filed upon 
and made use of, and eventually many enterprises were started, some 
of which depended on a combination of surface and underground 
waters, and others on underground waters alone. Still later refine- 
ments resulted in the reconstruction of many of the old ditches, the 
replacement of open canals by underground pipes, and the elimination 
thereby of waste by seepage and evaporation. In the lower lands 
wells were drilled which yielded flowing water, and stream waters 
which had previously been utilized on these lower lands were diverted 
to the bench lands, where products of higher value could be grown. 

As a result of this intensity of development it is probable that in no 
area in the United States are the waters so thoroughly utilized as in the 
region that lies south of the Tehachapi Mountains. In their passage 
from the mountains, where they originate in precipitation, to the sea, 
where they are lost, some portions of these waters are used as many 
as eight times — in power plants, in irrigation from surface streams, 
and finally by the recovery of that' portion of the surface flow which, 
sinking in the alluvial fans, augments the supply in the underground 
reservoirs. 

Much of the San Joaquin Valley is still in the pioneer stage of irri- 
gation development, depending almost exclusively on surface waters, 
and in a large part of the area waste is great, over-use is the rule, and, 
as a consequence, minimum production results from a maximum use 
of water. But the pioneer stage is passing. Engineers trained in 
more refined methods are entering the region and applying their train- 
ing. Special communities, like those about Portersville and Lindsay, 
where citrus fruits are raised, have for a decade or more used deep 
underground waters, whose cost greatly exceeds that of surface 
waters where the latter are available in other parts of the vaUey. 
This relatively high cost is amply justified, however, in the citrus belt 
by the great value of the products. 

In other parts of the valley, as, for example, in the neighborhood of 
Corcoran, capitalists who had profited in other regions through the use 
of flowing artesian waters have undertaken to develop colonies by 



IKRIGATION DEVELOPMENT. 7 

utilizing waters of this type, whose existence had been proved years 
before by the owners of large cattle ranches, who had put down wells 
to obtain water for stock. 

In still other districts, as about Bakersfield, Stockton, and Fresno, 
isolated individual pumping plants have been installed within the last 
decade, and by their use lands whose owners had been unable to secure 
rights to the limited supply of surface waters have been brought within 
the productive zone. 

These more or less isolated experiments and their successful outcome 
have resulted in a widespread recognition of the fact that the pro- 
ductivity of the San Joaquin Valley can be greatly increased by the 
utihzation of the heretofore neglected ground-water resources. This 
recognition has been followed logically by a desire for specific infor- 
mation as to the quality, occurrence, accessibility, character, and 
proper use of waters of this type. In response to this demand the 
Reclamation Service, in 1905, before its separation from the Geolog- 
ical Survey and erection into a separate Bureau of the Department of 
the Interior, determined to investigate the ground waters of the val- 
ley, with the hope that it might become possible to establish there a 
reclamation project whose water supply should be obtained from the 
underground reservoirs. Similar investigations were conducted in 
other parts of the United States during the first three or four years 
after the passage of the reclamation act, and as a result of these inves- 
tigations the energies of the Service were concentrated upon those 
projects which it found most practicable. 

The San Joaquin Valley did not afford one of these most practi- 
cable projects, and the investigations begun there by the Service 
were terminated; but the work already carried out had given some 
idea of the wide extent, the easy accessibility, and the high quality 
of the underground waters in many parts of the vaUey, and the Geo- 
logical Survey decided to continue the work begun by the Eeclama- 
tion Service. As the appropriations available for this work have 
not been sufficient to permit it to be carried through in a continuous 
and systematic manner, its progress has been greatly interrupted, 
and there has been much delay in the preparation of results. 

In the spring of 1905 A. J. Fiske, R. M. Priest, and S. M. Smith 
were assigned to work in the valley and spent about two months pre- 
ceding the 1st of July in the collection of preliminary data. The 
work was resumed in the spring of 1906 by W. N. White and H. R. 
Boynton, jr., and was continued during the summer of 1907 by Mr. 
White, who, before the close of the year, had completed the collec- 
tion of data on the flowing wells, pumping plants, and on many of 
the domestic wells throughout the valley. During about the same 
periods H. R. Johnson had been assigned to carry out a geologic study 
about the borders of the valley, in order to determine its structures, 



8 GROUND WATEES OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

in SO far as they might bear upon the occurrence of the ground waters 
of the valley proper. 

Much remains to be done in order that satisfactory data may be 
procured on all phases of the ground-water problems in the great area 
and reliable conclusions reached from the study of these data. More 
definite knowledge is needed as to the cost of developing ground 
waters binder all conditions ; the distribution of the alkaline waters 
that can not be used safely either for drinking purposes or for irriga- 
tion is not known with sufficient definiteness ; and estimates are 
needed as to the costs of placing San Joaquin River waters on the 
arid west-side lands that would be so highly productive could they be 
irrigated. Nevertheless it seems advisable to issue a preliminary 
report at this time in order to make available such facts as have been 
gathered and to call attention to the ground waters as a resource 
whose more general use will probably be the largest single element in 
the future development of the valley. Especially will the installa- 
tion of small pumping plants by individual landowners, who will 
thereby control their own water supplies, prove of great importance in 
the future. 

A single small-scale map (PL I) accompanies this report. In its 
preparation, the topographical and engineering map of the San Joa- 
quin Valley issued by the California State engineering department in 
1886 was used as a base. Some slight additions and corrections have 
been made as a result of later surveys, but the earlier map has been 
used substantially in its original form. Upon this base the area in which 
flowing wells may be obtained has been outlined with as much accu- 
racy as the information at hand permits. Beyond the limits of the 
artesian area the attitude of the ground-water plane has been indi- 
cated by hydrographic contours, which are based on the elevations of 
the surface as indicated by the topographic sketch contours of the 
base map. Neither set of contours is accurate in detail, but it is 
believed that the relations between the two — that is, the depths to 
ground water at various points — are correct within a reasonable mar- 
gin of error, so that the map will be of practical value. It must be 
remembered, in using this map, that ground- water levels do not every- 
where remain constant. On the deltas and in the irrigated areas there 
is a more or less regular annual variation in level, the plane of satura- 
tion rising during the high-water period — the period of maximum 
irrigation in early summer — and falling during the low- water period 
in the autumn and early winter. In the past there has been a marked 
permanent rise in the ground-water level in areas to which water has 
been applied by the construction of the large canals of the greater 
irrigation systems. This rise still continues in some localities, to 
which water has been applied for a number of years, and it will be 
marked in regions to which canal systems may be extended in the 







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ARTESIAN AREAS AND GROUNDWATER LEVELS 
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GEOGKAPHIC FEATURES. 9 

future, although the chief changes of this character haye doubtless 
already been brought about. In one or two limited areas there is 
probably also a general decline in ground-water levels. It is not pos- 
sible, of course, to indicate a varying water level by a single set of 
hydrographic contours. Those used indicate about the position and 
form of the water plane in the period from 1905 to 1907. 

GEOGRAPHY OF THE VALLEY. 

San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento Valley together constitute the 
Great Central Valley of California, with an area of nearly 16,000 
square miles. This level-floored depression is more than 500 miles 
long and varies from 20 to 50 miles in width. East of it the Sierra 
rises to between 14,000 and 15,000 feet above sea level, and west of it 
the lower coast ranges separate it from the Pacific. The greatest eleva- 
tion of the Sierra is near its eastern edge and all its important drainage 
is westward toward the Great Valley, an important fact upon which 
the greater part of the actual and prospective agricultural value of the 
valley depends. The coast ranges are a series of parallel ridges of 
moderate elevation that inclose valleys, like those of the Salinas and 
Santa Clara, which, when not too arid, are highly productive. 

The Great Valley itself exhibits little diversity in its physical aspect. 
Such differences as exist between its north and south ends are cli- 
matic, or, if physical, are directly due to climatic differences. Among 
local physical features based upon climatic differences may be men- 
tioned the Tulare basin at the south end of the San Joaquin Valley, 
due to the aridity of the region and the consequent extensive develop- 
ment of alluvial fans. Two of these, extending from Kings River on 
the east and Los Gatos Creek on the west side of the valley, have coa- 
lesced in a low ridge south of which lie the Tulare Lake and Kern 
Lake depressions. Basins different in character and situation, but 
originating nevertheless in climatic conditions, are the overflow basins 
of the Sacramento and the lower San Joaquin valleys, of which the 
Yolo basin may be mentioned as a type. These basins occupy the 
lowest portions of the flood plains just outside the ridges that form 
the immediate river banks. 

The central valley opens to San Francisco Bay and thence to the 
Pacific through Carquinez Straits and the Golden Gate, and the com- 
bined drainages of the Sacramento and San Joaquin systems discharge 
through these gateways. Other passes, like the Tehachapi, the Tejon, 
and Walker Pass near the south end of San Joaquin Valley, and the 
Livermore Valley gateway near Carquinez Straits, exist through the 
mountain barriers that surround the central lowland, but they are not 
as low nor as pronounced as the central tidal gateway. In general it 
may be said that the Great Valley is completely inclosed except for 
this opening. 



10 GROUND WATEES OF BAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

The larger lobe of the central depression, extending southward 
from Cosumnes River and Suisun Bay, is generally known as San 
Joaquin Valley, although it is not all drained directly by San Joaquin 
River and its tributaries. The southern more arid third of the depres- 
sion, extending from Kings River delta to the Tehachapi Mountains, 
has no surface outlet under normal conditions, and the surface waters 
accumulate in the Tulare Lake depression and the Buena Vista reser- 
voir. Originally Kern Lake received a portion of the excess from 
Kern River, but through the protection afforded by a restraining dike 
water is kept out of it except as unusual floods may break the restrain- 
ing dam, and the original lake bottoms have become valuable wheat 
lands. 

The streams that drain into the valley from the Sierra carry prac- 
tically all of the water that reaches it. They are in every way more 
important than those that enter it from the west. They have larger 
drainage basins, individually and collectively; they have longer 
courses; and they flow from higher mountains, with a much greater 
rainfall and a better protective covering of forest and brush; hence 
their discharge is many times greater and much less erratic than that 
of the west-side streams. 

The total drainage area^ tributary to the valley from the Sierra 
is 16,089 square miles; from the Tehachapi and Coast ranges 4,293 
square miles, and the area of the valley floor is 11,513 square miles. 
The total area of the San Joaquin basin is therefore 31,895 square 
miles. 

The average run-off of the principal east-side streams north of Kings 
River, with a combined drainage area of 7,543 square miles, is about 
8,500,000 acre-feet, while that of Kings, Kaweah, Tule, and Kern 
rivers, discharging into the Tulare basin from a watershed with an 
area of 5,143 square miles, is about 3,000,000 acre-feet. The total 
discharge into the valley from 12,686 square miles of Sierra water- 
shed is therefore about 11,500,000 acre-feet. 

The preponderance of east-side streams has given the valley floor 
its well-marked unsymmetrical form. The valley axis, the line of 
lowest depression, is throughout much nearer the western than the 
eastern foothills. In places it lies against these hills, but elsewhere, 
as between Los Gatos and Cantua creeks, the west-side slopes are 15 
or 18 miles wide, at least one-half as wide as those of the east side. 
They are also steeper than those of the east. Grades of 20 or even 
40 feet to the mile are not rare, and it is unusual for the grades to 
be less than 6 or 8 feet per mile. On the east side 30 feet to a mile 
is about the maximum gradient, while 5 feet or less is perhaps the 
average. 

a Hall, William Ham., Physical data and statistics of California, pp. 396 et seq. 



OEOT.OGIC CONDITIONS. 11 

These conditions are due directly to the fact that the valley floor 
has been built up by the alluvial material eroded by the streams 
from the mountains east and west of the depression and deposited 
in it. The larger and more active streams build flatter but more 
extensive alluvial fans — the type that makes up the east-side slopes; 
the more erratic and torrential streams of smaller volume build the 
steeper and less extensive fans that constitute the west-side slopes. 

GEOI.OGIC OUTLINE. ' 

THE ROCKS OF THE VALLEY BORDERS. 

In simplest outline, the geology of the eastern border of San 
Joaquin Valley consists of the "Bedrock series" of granites and 
metamorphic sedimentary and igneous masses of pre-Cretaceous age, 
overlain at the north and south ends of the valley in an interrupted 
band occupying a zone of low relief between the Sierra proper and 
the valley proper by a series of Tertiary sediments, entirely unaltered 
and including beds as old as the Eocene, although the great body of 
the material seems to be Miocene or Pliocene in age. Between San 
Joaquin River and Portersville this zone of late sediments is missing, 
and the sands and gravels of the valley proper lie upon the flanks of 
the Sierran granite and metamorphic complex. Because of this 
hiatus the east-side Tertiary is separated into two bodies, of which the 
northern extends from Fresno River nearly to the Cosumnes, and the 
southern, conveniently designated as the Bakersfield area, extends 
from Deer Creek to the Canada de las Uvas. 

The northern area of Tertiary rocks, which is chiefly in the Milton- 
Merced regions, includes a lower, clayey series that has been called 
the lone formation, a middle zone of andesitic sandstone, coarse 
volcanic breccias, and tuffaceous beds, and an upper gravelly series 
that is in places auriferous. This upper series usually occurs along 
the most westerly foothills and merges at many points with the 
gravels and soils of the valley floor. 

The southern area consists of alternating beds of soft sandstone, 
clay, and gravel, the uppermost beds being coarse, like those of the 
northern area, and scarcely distinguishable in some places from the 
alluvium of the valley itself. 

The geology of the western margin of the valley contrasts in many 
ways with that of the eastern border. The oldest rocks of the 
Mount Diablo Range — the easternmost of the coast ranges — com- 
prise a series of altered igneous and sedimentary rocks known as the 
Franciscan series, which extend along the axis of the range from a 
point southwest of Coalinga to San Francisco Bay. Overlying them 

« Abstract from a manuscript by H. R. Johnson, on the geology of the borders of the San Joaquin 
VaUey. 



12 GROUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

on the valley side, but not continuously, is a series of sandstones, 
shales, and conglomerates of Cretaceous and oldest Tertiary age. 
Succeeding these in turn is a variable series, locally of great thick- 
ness and usually but not always present in some of its members, rep- 
resenting the Neocene — that is, the middle and upper Tertiary. 
These rocks, like the older sediments beneath them, are sandstones, 
shales, and conglomerates, but usually they are less firmly indurated 
than the Eocene and Cretaceous rocks. They overlie the latter 
unconformably and contain many unconformities within themselves, 
with a resulting variability in thickness and irregularity in extent of 
individual beds. This series contains the siliceous shales generally 
spoken of in literature as the "Monterey," besides a great variety 
and abundance of sandstones and conglomerates. Toward the top 
of the series are beds that clearly represent fresh water or sub aerial 
deposition, undoubtedly much like that which is now taking place 
in Tulare lake and in the west-side alluvial fans. As a whole the sedi- 
mentary series dips toward the valley, although interruptions like 
the anticline of the Kettleman and McKittrick hills in places vary 
the prevailing monoclinal dips. In general the structures of the 
valley border are more complex at the south end than along the 
middle portion and at the north. 

The valley as a whole is a great structural trough and appears to 
have been such a basin since well back in Tertiary time. Since it 
assumed its general troughlike form, gradual subsidence, perhaps 
interrupted by periods of uplift, has continued and has been accom- 
panied by deposition alternating at least along what is now its 
western border with intervals of erosion. This interrupted but on 
the whole continuous deposition seems to have been marine during 
the early and middle Tertiary; but during the later Tertiary and 
Pleistocene, when presumably the valley had been at least roughly 
outlined by the growth of the coast ranges, fresh-water and terrestrial 
conditions became more and more predominant, until the relations 
of land and sea, of rivers and lakes, of coast line and interior, of 
mountain and valley, as they exist now, were gradually evolved. As 
these conditions developed, the ancestors of the present rivers 
probably brought to the salt and fresh water bodies that occupied 
the present site of the valley and its borders, or, in the latest phases 
of the development, to the land surface itself, the clays, sands, 
gravels, and alluvium that subsequently consolidated into the shales, 
sandstones, and conglomerates of the late Tertiary and Pleistocene 
series, just as the present rivers are supplying the alluvium that is 
even now accumulating over the valley floor. 

The very latest of these accumulations are the sand and silt and 
gravel beds penetrated by the driller in his explorations for water 
throughout the valley. They are like the early folded sandstones, 



ORIGIN OF VALLEY SURFACE. 13 

shales, and conglomerates exposed along the flanks of the valley, 
except that they -are generally finer, are not yet consolidated or 
disturbed. The greater part, perhaps all of them, accumulated as 
stream wash on the valley surface or in interior lakes like the present 
Tulare Lake, but a proportion of the older sediment that is greater as 
we delve farther back into the geologic past accumulated in the sea 
or in salt bays having free connection with the sea. It is these very 
latest geologic deposits, saturated below the ground-water level by 
the fresh water supplied chiefly by the Sierran streams, that con- 
stitute the reservoirs drawn upon by the wehs, whether flowing or 
pumped, throughout the valley. 

The chemical characters of the ground waters, as well as their 
occurrence and aGcessibility, are related to geology. If the valley 
alluvium is derived from the Cretaceous and Tertiary beds of the 
coast ranges, rich in gypsum and other sulphates and carbonates 
which are relatively easily soluble, the ground waters that percolate 
through it will soon dissolve large quantities of the salts. If the 
alluvium, on the other hand, is derived from the granites and meta- 
morphic rocks of the Sierra, whose potassium, sodium, and calcium 
compounds are in the form of resistant silicates, the ground waters 
dissolve out these constituents slowly and under all ordinary con- 
ditions remain quite free from salts. 

Obviously if the sands and gravels through which the ground 
waters percolate were deposited under such conditions that salts 
were deposited with them, as in the salt water of the sea or of bays 
like San Francisco Bay, or in interior lakes that are saline through 
evaporation, as is true of Tulare Lake, then the ground waters them- 
selves will quickly become saline, although when they leave the 
mountains as surface waters, before their absorption by the alluvial 
fans, they may be as pure natural waters as are known in the world. 

ORIGIN OF THE PRESENT VALLEY SURFACE. 

The lowland through the heart of California known as the Great 
Valley, whose origin as a depression appears, in accordance with the 
facts just outlined, to date well back into Tertiary time, owes its 
actual surface to more recent action and to more obvious agents. 
That surface is, in brief, a combination of the surfaces of a great 
number of alluvial fans, originating at the mouths of the canyons 
through which the tributary streams discharge from the mountains 
into the valley. 

Each stream that enters the valley brings with it from the moun- 
tains a greater or a smaller quantity of sand, gravel, or bowlders. 
All or a part of this burden is deposited in the valley, and the deposit 
constitutes the alluvial fan of that particular stream. The apex of 
each fan is the mouth of the stream canyon. From this apex it 



14 GROUND WATEES OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

broadens and flattens until it coalesces at its periphery with other 
fans. The stream that built it usually spreads delta- wise over it, 
discharging through a number of diverging channels into the trough 
of the valley. As a rule these spreading distributaries flow upon the 
surface of the fan, but some of the major streams from the San 
Joaquin northward are incised into the valley floor in shallow trenches 
100 feet or less in depth. This must be due to special conditions, 
such as recent change in volume of stream flow or in elevation of 
the land relative to the sea — conditions not yet understood. 

The fans of different portions of the valley indicate by their mass 
and form the conditions of volume and distribution of rainfall under 
which they originated. The west-side fans, particularly those in 
the middle of the valley and near its southern end, are steep and 
symmetrical, forms characteristic of areas of low rainfall very 
irregularly distributed. The east-side fans are of much greater mass 
and lower slope because the rivers that built them have a greater 
flow of somewhat less irregular character. The Kern River fan has 
grown westward against the McKittrick hills until it has isolated the 
Buena Vista basin south of it. Before dams had been built, inter- 
fering with the natural conditions here, a shallow lake occupied the 
present site of Buena Vista reservoir and the old bed of Kern Lake, 
and during seasons of unusual rainfall there was overflow northward 
toward Tulare Lake. The basin occupied by Tulare Lake is likewise 
due to the aridity of the valley and the consequent development of 
the Kings Kiver and Los Gatos Creek fans. South of the low, broad 
ridge due to the coalescing of these two fans is the Tulare basin, in 
which a part of the surplus waters of the streams south of it accumu- 
late. As a consequence of the flatness of this basin and the very 
erratic character of the supply that reaches it, the lake fluctuates 
widely in area during a series of years. 

Northward from Tulare Lake basin the discharge of the streams is 
sufficiently great and sufficiently constant to prevent the formation 
of delta-dams like those formed by Kings River and Los Gatos Creek 
fans, and an open channel is maintained from the San Joaquin north- 
ward to Suisun Bay. 

Along the lower course of the San Joaquin, conditions resemble 
those in the Sacramento Valley, i. e., they are the conditions usual 
along rivers draining humid rather than arid regions. Large areas 
are subject to regular annual inundation during the spring floods or 
are protected from this inundation only by the construction of arti- 
ficial levees. The greater part of the water that inundates this area 
is supplied by the Sacramento system, but the greatest overflow 
occurs when the floods appear in the two systems at the same time. 

The essential fact as to the present valley surface is that it is a 
direct result of stream action. It has everywhere been built up by 
deposition from the streams or from the fluctuating lakes that are 



SOILS. 15 

themselves dependent upon the streams ; and it is formed of materials 
brought by the streams from the mountainous portions of their 
drainage basins where they are eroding instead of depositing 
Throughout the south end of the valley its surface is a combination 
of alluvial fan surfaces; at the north end of the valley these fans, 
less strikingly and typically developed because of the greater pre- 
cipitation there, still predominate along the valley borders, while the 
center of the valley is a flood plain of the usual type. 

SOILS. 

As the valley surface has been molded by stream action into its 
present form, so the soils of the valley represent deposition by the 
rivers of materials washed out of the mountains from which they 
dram. This soil is modified in various ways after the streams have 
deposited it — by disintegration of the rock particles where the 
streams have left them, by the mingling of the products of vegetal 
decay where vegetation is abundant, or by chemical processes in 
place, such as the formation of hardpans or the accumulation of 
alkalies; but the soil foundation, so to speak, reflects pretty closely 
the type of rock outcropping in the drainage basin of the stream on 
whose delta the particular soils are found. 

For example, the soils of the deltas of Kern and Kings rivers are in 
large part of granitic derivation, because granitic rocks form the 
greater part of the mountain drainage basin of each of these rivers. 
Their coarseness and the distribution of the coarse and fine phases 
are to a certain extent matters of accident, due to the location of 
present or past channels of the streams across their deltas; but in 
steep alluvial fans the coarser and more bowldery soils occur nearer 
the mountains. In the fans of those east-side streams from the 
Merced northward, whose lower courses at least are cut through late 
Tertiary formations containing a large percentage of lavas and derived 
products, other types of soil result. 

The west-side streams, draining mountains practically free from 
granites and similar rocks but with soft serpentines, shales, and sand- 
stones, deposit fragments of those rocks in their alluvial fans, and the 
result is a soil type entirely different from that of the east side and 
south end of the valley. These shale, clay, serpentine, and sand- 
stone fragments disintegrate much more quickly than the granitic 
sands that contain large proportions of such resistant minerals as 
quartz and feldspar, and the result is the mellow, loamy soil with its 
fragments of siliceous shale that makes much of the west slope of the 
valley and is so productive whenever water can be applied to it. 

Soil of another general class occurs at a few localities along the east 
side of the valley. This soil is not of alluvial fan origin, brought into 
the valley by the streams from the surrounding mountains, but is 
due to decay in place of the rocks underlying the particular area 



16 GROUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

where it occurs. Soils of this class are found northeast of Fresno 
beyond Clovis, and in some of the coves like Clark Valley north of 
Eeedley, and perhaps in other foothill valleys in the Portersville- 
Lindsay district. Some of the rolling wheat lands found in a zone 
along the eastern border of Stanislaus and Merced counties may also 
be regarded as derived from the decay of rock in place rather than 
from inwashed alluvial fan material, but as the rock is itself a late 
Tertiary sediment differing but little from the alluvial fan material 
of the same area, the classification of the soils as residual rather than 
colluvial has no practical significance. 

Another type of soil is neither more nor less than fine beach sand. 
This type is best developed in a zone surrounding Tulare Lake, and 
it represents the shore lines of that water body when it contained 
much more water than at present. In places this sand has been 
reworked by the wind — blown into inconspicuous dunes, as in the 
'^Sand Ridge" near the Kings-Kern county line. 

Finally, there are the soils of the '^Tule lands" and the '^Islands," 
the areas subject to overflow particularly along the lower course of 
the San Joaquin and its tributaries, but present, although less exten- 
sively developed, in other areas. These lands are black loams or 
adobes or impure peats, and are very fertile when reclaimed. 

The Bureau of Soils of the Department of Agriculture has made 
detailed surveys of certain areas in the San Joaquin Valley as the 
beginning of a general soil mapping of the entire valley. Th®- sheets 
at present available cover areas about Stockton, Fresno, Hanford, 
and Bakersfield, and others are in preparation. In the text of the 
reports and in the maps that accompany them, the soils are classified 
in great detail on a physical basis, and by a proper study of this 
classification the geologic origin of most of the soils may be traced. 

Another task undertaken by the Bureau of Soils, of even greater 
immediate value, is the mapping of the alkalies. This work is 
designed to afford suggestions as to the management and reclamation 
of alkaline soils and prevention of the rise of the alkalies. When it 
has been completed for the entire valley it will be of great service in 
preventing sales of worthless lands to purchasers who buy in good 
faith with the idea of establishing homes. Many sales of this kind 
have been made in the valley, and any work that will tend to reduce 
their number is to be welcomed. 

SURFACE WATERS. 

The streams of the San Joaquin Valley and their characteristics 
have been referred to incidentally in the preceding pages. These 
characteristics depend upon the physical geography of south-central 
California and the control which it exerts over climate. All of the 
perennial and important streams flow from the Sierra. 



STREAM FLOW. 17 

Precipitation within the Sierra district depends upon altitude, 
latitude, and longitude. Up to a certain limit precipitation increases 
with increase of altitude; be3^ond that limit, which at the crossing of 
the Central Pacific is at Cisco, 6,000 feet above sea and 1,000 feet below 
the summit, precipitation decreases. Rainfall decreases also south- 
ward along the summit of the Sierra as well as in the valleys ; and in 
those parts of the range, principally its southern portion, where alti- 
tude does not increase regularly from the western toward the eastern 
margin, so that the effect of longitude is not obscured by that of 
altitude, vegetation indicates less rainfall as the desert border of the 
range is approached. 

Under these conditions, therefore, it is evident that the greatest dis- 
charge per unit of area will come from those streams with the greater 
proportion of their drainage basins farthest north in the high part of 
the Sierra but west of the summit. 

From the tables of discharge for 1906, as published by the United 
States Geological Survey, in Water-Supply Paper 213, the following 
stream run-off in second-feet per square mile is taken: 

Run-off of California rivers in second-feet per square mile. 

Feather River 2. 72 

Yuba River ' 4. 37 

American River ■ 4. 29 

Stanislaus River 3. 63 

Tuolumne River 3. 33 

Kings River 3. 09 

Kaweah River 2. 93 

Kern River 1. 11 

Data for the San Joaquin are not available. All these streams 
except Feather and Kern rivers occupy comparable positions on the 
western slope of the Sierra and drain the areas of maximum precipita- 
tion for their respective latitudes. The rather regular decrease south- 
ward from the Yuba to the Kaweah may therefore be assigned with 
confidence to the effect of latitude on precipitation. The drainage 
basins of both the Feather and the Kern extend into the very eastern 
part of the Sierra beyond the zone of maximum precipitation, and the 
inferiority of run-off from their basins as compared with that of neigh- 
boring streams may be assigned, in part at least, to the effect of 
longitude; i. e., their basins extend so far east as to be measurably 
affected by desert conditions. Altitude may also be a factor, since 
each of these streams drains portions of the range which are not so 
high as areas in the intermediate basins. The discharge of the prin- 
cipal east-side streams and the areas drained by each are summarized 
in the following table, compiled from the records of the State engi- 
neering department of California and from those of the United States 
Geological Survey. 

57280— IRR 222—08 2 



18 



GROUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 



The number of years of observations from which the average dis- 
charge was determined is also given. As several of these records are 
as short as five years, and one, that of the Kern, as long as seventeen 
years, it is obvious that they differ in value; but on the whole they 
supply a concrete indication of the average amount of water dis- 
charged into the San Joaquin Valley annually by its chief streams. 

Discharge of streams from east side of San Joaquin Valley. 



River. 


i^ength of 
record . 


Area of 

drainage 

ba.sin. 


Average 

annual 

discharge. 


Cosumnes 


Years. 
5 
5 
8 
5 
11 
11 
10 
5 
12 

9 
17 


Sq. miles. 

580 

283 

657 

491 

1,051 

1.500 

1,076 

268 

1,637 

1,742 

619 

437 

2,345 


A cre-feet. 
882, 417 


Jackson Creek 


161,672 

1,640,057 

?39 306 


Mokelumne 


Calaveras . . . . 


Stanislaus 


1 254 151 


Tuolumne. 


1,011,452 

1,113,754 

61 834 


Merced 


Chowchilla 


San Joaquin 


1,972,145 


Kings 


1,790,187 
401 , 954 


Kaweah 


Tule 


199, 444 
670,611 


Kern 






Total . ... 


12,686 


11,498,984 







The high-water period of the Sierra streams comes during the late 
spring and early summer months, when the snow accumulated in the 
winter is melting most rapidly from the mountains; the low-water 
flow comes during the late summer and fall months after the snows 
are gone and before the winter rains have begun. These characteris- 
tics are illustrated in the following table of monthly discharge of 
Kings River for 1906, as determined by the United States Geological 
Survey:^ 

Monthly discharge of Kings River, 1906. 



Month. 



Discharge in second-feet. 


Maximum. 


Minimum. 


Mean. 


25,500 


205 


2,360 


2,150 


792 


1,150 


21,000 


1,220 


5,240 


7,760 


2,960 


4.720 


16,800 


3,930 


10,700 


26,600 


8,320 


17, 100 


22,400 


8,180 


16,300 


7,900 


1,870 


4,300 


2,020 


682 


1,120 


682 


385 


516 


610 


330 


397 


2,230 


330 


700 



Total in 
acre-feet. 



January . . 
February . 

March 

April 

May 

June 

July 

August... 
September 
October .. 
November 
December. 



144, 000 

63,900 

322,000 

281,000 

658, 000 

1,020,000 

1,000,000 

264,000 

66.600 

31 ; 700 

23,600 

43,000 



Each of the major streams discharges from the mountains upon the 
eastern edge of the valley in a single channel, but after reaching the 
valley it usually divides into a number of branches, thus spreading 
over its delta. This characteristic is most marked in the streams that 
flow into the southern end of the valley, for many of the northern 



Watei Supply Paper 313, p, 159» 



VALUE OF GROUND WATERS. 19 

tributaries are incised in the valley floor and are thus confined 
between definite banlvs. This distribution is much more pronounced 
during the high-water period of early summer than at other seasons 
of the year. A main chaimel of sufficient capacity to carry the low- 
water flow proves inadequate during the flood period, and there is 
then overflow into the numerous subsidiary channels. 

The natural habit of all of the main streams has of course been 
extensivel}^ modified by irrigation. Canal systems now take from 
the channels practically all of the low- water flow and an important 
percentage of the maximum early summer flow. These systems have 
been described by Grunsky.® 

The west-side streams are practically negligible as factors in the 
San Joaquin Valley water supply. Onl}^ a few of them are perennial, 
and the late summer flow of these is so slight that a few acres at most 
can be irrigated by their use. A trifling amount of irrigation of this 
type is accomplished by utilizing the waters from Los Gatos Creek, 
Cantua Creek, and others. 

UNDERGROUND WATERS. 

VALUE FOR IRRIGATION. 

Although the underground waters of the valley have been known 
and used in minor ways practically ever since its settlement, it is 
nevertheless true that the movement for their extensive utilization 
as sources of irrigation supply is a late phase of development, for 
many of the earlier attempts to make use of them resulted in failure. 

Among the causes that have contributed to past failures may be 
mentioned: Application of the developed waters to poor lands, 
wasteful methods of application; dependence on the continuance of 
artesian flow; lack of adjustment to the greater cost of pumped 
waters as compared with that of the gravity waters upon which 
rehance has heretofore been placed; lack of intensive farming meth- 
ods and of proper adaptation of crops to soil and locality; too large 
farm units; and, in a few cases, inadequate transportation facilities. 

The most potent of all these causes has been the prevalence of the 
easy-going methods of the pioneer — the careless, wasteful habits that 
are a direct inheritance from the grazing and grain-raising period 
which has not yet passed from the valley. Land and such waters as 
are utilized have cost little heretofore in the San Joaquin Valley, and 
things that cost little are lightly valued, no matter what their intrin- 
sic worth. This spirit is fostered by the immense holdings of some 
of the larger companies. Few of these companies practice intensive 
cultivation, though their lands are among the best in the valley. 

oGrunsky, C. E., Water Sup. Papers, U. S. Geol. Survey, Nos. 17, 18, and 19. Tbese papers arq 
no longer available for distribution, but they may be consulted in libraries. 



20 GROUND WATEES OF SAl^ JOAQUII^ VALLEY. 

Usually hay and grain are raised to feed through the dry season the 
stock that is in pasture during the grazing period. But although 
not as a rule intensely cultivated and by no means producing the 
maximum of food products or supporting the largest possible popu- 
lation, most of the large holdings are more carefully and successfully 
managed than the quarter section of the small farmer. 

Despite all obstacles and discouragements, however, the use of 
underground waters is gradually extending. Special, high-priced 
products like the citrus fruits of the Portersville-Lindsay district jus- 
tify heavy expenditures for production, and underground water has 
long been successfully used in this section. One of the highest lifts 
in the world of water for agricultural and horticultural purposes is 
that of the Badger Irrigation Company's plant at Exeter, with a 
maximum lift of 586 feet. This is an experiment, but the success of 
pumping water to great heights to irrigate the specially early citrus 
fruits of this region is fully demonstrated, the acreage devoted to 
these products is constantly extending, and the yield is increasing 
rapidly as groves planted recently approach maturity. 

Irrigation by means of pumped underground water is also proving 
successful under the entirely different conditions that exist about 
Lathrop, Lodi, and Stockton, in San Joaquin County. About 200 
small pumping plants are in operation in this county, the greater 
number of which have been installed within a few years. By their 
use alfalfa, vineyards, and varied crops of fruits and vegetables are 
successfully grown. Windmills also are extensively used, often with 
auxiliary gas engines attached to the same well. The area in which 
this type of irrigation is practiced is closely settled, houses are neat, 
prosperous looking, and well cared for, the villages and cities which 
supply the country trade and market the products are flourishing, 
and altogether there is every evidence of successful endeavor and 
abundant prosperity. 

Still other communities whose existence depends upon the utiliza- 
tion of ground waters are the recently established colonies in Kings, 
Tulare, and Kern counties, of which the Corcoran settlement is a 
t5rpe. This particular locality is within the artesian basin, and a 
group of deep wells yield flowing waters which are utilized for all pur- 
poses. As a result, successful dairy farms have been established, 
sugar beets are raised, and a factory has been built for the manufac- 
ture of sugar from them. 

It is thus evident that there is a gradual awakening to the value of 
the ground waters and their usability, although in many localities the 
advocate of the use of these waters is still met by the statement that 
they can not be developed and applied at a profit under agricultural 
conditions as they now exist. It is true that the pumped waters are 



VALUE OF GliOUND WATERS. 21 

more expensive than the ditch waters, wliose cost as a rule is very 
low. The average cost of tlie pumped water used by the Kern 
County Land Compan}^ near Bakersfield, with an average Hft of 30 
feet, is $1.29 per second-foot for 24 hours on the basis of a charge of 
15 cents per horsepower per hour for electric current, whereas the 
cost of surface water in the same locality is 75 cents per second-foot 
for twenty- four hours; i. e., the pumped water costs 72 per cent more 
than the surface water. When it is remembered, however, that 
almost universally in the San Joaquin Valley water is used in great 
excess, to the immediate and ultimate injury not only of the lands 
to which it is applied but of adjacent lands; that on many of the 
delta lands there is as yet but little intensive cultivation, and that 
therefore the margin of profit is low; that there is an important pro- 
portion of large holdings and absentee ownership dependent upon 
inefficient hired labor; and above all that, in the midst of the com- 
munities in which it is asserted that pumped waters can not be 
profitably used in agriculture individuals may generally be found 
who are using them with striking success; when all of these things 
are taken into consideration, it may be asserted with confidence that 
the greatest increase in the agricultural development in this valley in 
the future will be brought about by a utilization of the ground-water 
supplies, whose development has only begun and whose value is as 
yet but faintly realized. 

It will probably be true in the future, as it has been in the past, that 
side by side with successful attempts at the utilization of under- 
ground waters will be unsuccessful attempts, and that the general 
movement for full realization upon this asset will be checked here 
and there by conspicuous failures widely advertised. This is a con- 
dition that always arises in any general advance. Each failure 
should teach its individual lesson as to a particular way not to under- 
take development or to apply water, and should not be interpreted 
as an argument against the usefulness of the resource under proper 
conditions, for the fundamental facts remain that ground waters 
exist beneath the floor of the San Joaquin Valley in immense volume 
and that over wide areas they are of high quality and very accessible. 
They are certain, therefore, to be widely used in the future, and by 
their use hundreds of thousands of acres now arid and unproductive 
will be brought to yield handsomely. 

The development of the ground waters under the conditions that 
exist at present, when the chief argument against them is their cost 
as compared with that of the surface waters which have set the stand- 
ard should follow two or three lines. 

In the first place, pumping plants in the higher parts of the delta 
lands should be used as adjuncts to insufficient gravity supplies. The 



22 GROtJKt) WATERS OF SAlsT JOAQtJIN VALLEY. 

supply of the gravity waters during the flood months of May, June, 
and July is from 2 or 3 to 15 or 20 times that available during the 
months of August, September, and October, when many crops are 
maturing. As a consequence many owners of late rights to gravity 
waters secure a proportion of the flow during the early high-water 
period, but are left without it during the low-water period, when 
there is only sufflcient to satisfy the earliest rights. Such owners 
often have enough gravity water for one or two early irrigations, but 
not more. Under present conditions, therefore, the maturing of late 
crops is a precarious matter with them, and they are confined prac- 
tically to those products which will yield returns when irrigated only 
in the spring or early summer. This is a serious handicap, as it greatly 
limits the range of their agricultural activity and often condemns 
their land to idleness during half of the year. By the installation of 
pumping plants, to be operated only when gravity waters are not 
available, this handicap is removed, and yet the cost of irrigation is 
much less than where no surface waters are available and pumps 
must be operated continuously. 

In the second place, in districts that have a market for garden 
products or for those special farm products whose value and yield 
justify some expense in their production, as sweet potatoes, celery, 
asparagus, or onions, the small land owner can well afford to install 
an individual pumping plant independent of surface supplies. The 
same method will be successful with crops that require only one or 
two irrigations a year, as, for example, some of the fancy varieties 
of grapes that are now raised so profitably in the northern part of 
the valley. 

Another line to be followed in development is the utilization of 
flowing artesian waters. Along the axis of the valley is a zone with 
an area of about 4,300 square miles within which flowing waters are 
available. Over perhaps two- thirds of this area the flowing waters 
are sufficiently pure to be suitable for use in irrigation. 

None of these lines along which it is suggested that ground waters 
may be used are experiments. Each has been followed successfully 
in some of the communities in the valley, although in other sections 
quite as favorably situated the investigator will be told that pumped 
or flowing waters can not be used profitably. Communities, like 
individuals, fall into ruts, acquire bad habits, and lose the power of 
initiative. In this condition they may overlook or fail to utilize' 
some of their most valuable assets. 

In the course of this investigation nearly 4,000 wells in the valley 
have been examined and data collected as to depth, yield, cost, etc. 
Among them are many flowing wells. For most of the wells the data ^ 



VALUE OF GROUND WATERS. 



23 



are incomplete, but from the records available the following averages 
have been determined: 



Average size, depth, yield, cost, etc.. 


of flowing wells. 






County. 


Number 
aver- 
aged. 


Average 
diameter, 
(inches). 


Depth 
(feet). 


Yield 
(miner's 
inches). a 


Average 
cost. 


Annual 
interest 
on cost 
at 8 per 
cent. 


Interest 
charge 

per 

mmer's 

inch per 

year. 


Kern 


10 

7 
32 

7 
16 


10 
9 

8 
8 

7 


621 
1,037 
745 
936 
350 


53.3 
30 
26 
20 
5h 


$1,545 

2,555 

1,711 

1,540 

470 


$123. 60 

204. 40 

136. 88 

123. 20 

37.60 


$2.30 


Kings 


6.81 


Tulare 


5.26 


Fresno 


6.16 


Merced 


6.84 







a A California miner's inch equals 0.02 second-foot. 

These are actual averages based upon the experience of owners of 
wells already . drilled and flowing. They therefore have a definite 
value as a basis for estimating costs of artesian waters to be obtained 
as a result of future developments. They may be compared with 
the charge made on the Kern delta for gravity water, namely, 75 
cents per second-foot for 24 hours, equivalent to $5.47 per miner's 
inch per annum. 

In comment upon the table it is to be said that the Kern County 
average is too low, because it happens that among the wells for 
which sufficiently complete data exist for computing these averages 
there were one or two of exceptionally great yield that have unduly 
raised the average yield and reduced the cost, thereby giving a figure 
lower than that which will probably be realized in future develop- 
ment. 

It must be remembered further that the figures are based on the 
assumption that the entire year's flow will be utilized. This assump- 
tion can be realized only by the construction of reservoirs in which 
the water will be stored during the nonirrigating season for use 
when wanted. Such construction will add to the cost and will 
reduce the supply in three ways: (1) By a reduction of flow because 
of the increased height of delivery necessary to discharge into a res- 
ervoir; (2) through loss by evaporation from the surface of the 
reservoir; (3) through loss by seepage from the reservoir. 

The uncertainty as to the amount that will be delivered by any 
artesian well is another disturbing factor in making exact calcula- 
tions. The area within which flowing waters are procurable has been 
outlined with approximate accuracy, but the yield of any well can 
be determined only after the well has been sunk and the necessary 
capital invested in it. Some of the wells used in computations have 
delivered much more than the average supply and so have yielded 
exceptionally cheap waters; others have delivered less than the 
average, and their waters are correspondingly expensive. 



24 GKOUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

Another condition that must be reaHzed is this : When the number 
of wells drawing from the artesian supply is greatly increased in any 
particular neighborhood, the wells interfere and the yield of each is 
lessened. When the maximum acreage is dependent on artesian 
flow under these conditions, the installation of pumping machinery 
may become necessary in order to insure the continuance of an ade- 
quate water supply. 

As against these disadvantages, which have been rather fully out- 
lined, as is essential in any frank and therefore useful discussion, is to 
be placed regularity and relative constancy of the supply and its avail- 
ability at all times, as compared with the fluctuations of surface waters 
unavailable except during the flood season to any but the owners of 
the oldest rights. An added advantage where the landowner owns 
his well is his complete control over his water supply. He may 
irrigate when and how he will, and thus most economically, and is not 
dependent upon the adjustment of supply among a number of users 
from a common source. 

ORIGIN OF THE GROUND WATERS. 

The ground waters of the San Joaquin Valley have precisely the 
same origin as its surface waters — namely, the rainfall and snowfall in 
the drainage basins tributary to the valley. They are in reality 
simply that portion of the surface waters that sinks into the sands and 
gravels of the valley floor and makes the rest of its journey seaward 
by slow percolation through the pores between the sand grains. 

One of three things happens to the water that reaches the earth's 
surface as precipitation: (1) It returns directly to the air by evapora- 
tion from plant, soil, or water surfaces; or (2) it flows to the sea in 
surface streams; or (3) it sinks into the ground, and joins the body of 
water that saturates the soil particles below the ground-water level. 
It is with the latter part of the precipitation on the nearly 32,000 
square miles of area included in the San Joaquin Valley and the 
raountain watershed tributary to it that we have to deal. 

In the outline of the geologic history of the valley it has been 
pointed out that its entire surface is made up of the surfaces of con- 
tiguous alluvial fans, and that the valley is underlain to a depth that 
can not be determined accurately, but that doubtless runs into thou- 
sands of feet, by porous, unconsolidated, alluvial-fan material, 
mingled, in some areas, with lake deposits. This material has been 
transported from the mountains to the valley by the agency of run- 
ning water. Many times its own volume of water has passed through 
and over it in the course of its removal from the mountains to the 
valley. It was deposited by and in water and has been more or less 
continuously saturated ever since. 



CIRCULATION OF GROTTND WATERS. 25 

A large but quite undeterminal)le portion of the run-ofT from tlic 
mountains each year sinks and joins the ground water. Of the 3,000,- 
000 acre-feet discharged annually into the valley south of the Kings 
River-San Joaquin divide, only the small portion that spills north- 
ward from Kings River itself reaches the sea over the surface, because 
there has been no outflow from Tulare Lake for forty years. The 
greater part evaporates or sinks to join the underground supply. 
Northward from Kings River the surface waters are greater in volume 
than south of it and serve effectually to keep the sands and gravels 
beneath them saturated. 

UNDERGROUND CIRCULATION. 

Underground waters near the surface usually move slowly in the 
direction of the surface slope and at rates that vary with the gradient 
of the slope and the coarseness of the material through which they 
percolate. The freedom of the outlet by which they escape is also 
important. They may be ponded by a restricted outlet just as surface 
waters may. Measurements of rates of ground water movements in 
the San Joaquin Valley are not available, but facts stated in the follow- 
ing paragraph indicate pretty plainly the conditions that probably 
prevail : 

(1) The alluvial fans that make up the valley floor are generally of 
low slope and fine material. The fans of the Canada de las Uvas and 
of San Emigdio Creek, at the south end of the valley, and of Pala 
Prieta and Los Gatos creeks on the west side are exceptions ; but the 
streams that have produced them contribute so small a proportion of the 
ground waters that they may be disregarded. (2) The general slope 
of the lowest line of the valley, from the south to the norths is not 
only not continuous, in that it is interrupted by ridges like that north of 
the Tulare basin, but it averages only about 1 foot to the mile, a very low 
gradient for a semi-arid region. (3) The wells drilled throughout the 
valley prove that the sediments underlying it are all fine. (4) The 
surface outlet of the San Joaquin and Sacramento drainage is by way 
of Suisun Bay and the straits of Carquinez to San Francisco Bay; 
but the straits are restricted, and it is not probable that bedrock lies 
far beneath the surface in their vicinity. In short, there is no ade- 
quate outlet for the underground waters of the Great Valley, which is 
canoe-shaped, with only a notch in the rim at the straits through which 
the surface waters spill. All of these conditions favor slow movement 
of the underground waters about the borders and at the ends of the 
valley, with their practical stagnation along the lower San Joaquin 
because there is no adequate outlet for them there. To be sure, 
capillarity and evaporation afford some slight escape for the ground 
waters as they approach the surface in their slow movement along the 



26 GROUND WATERS OF SAK JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

valley axis. The great alkaline areas of the east slope and of the valley 
trough indicate escape of underground waters, because it is by this • 
escape that the alkalies are concentrated at the surface ; but the out- 
let provided in this way is of slight consequence when compared with 
the total body of ground waters. 

The belief that there is little movement in the subsurface waters 
of the lower San Joaquin is strengthened by a consideration of their 
chemical characteristics. Some of the ground waters of the upper 
deltas of the east side are among the purest waters of this type known, 
while those from the shallow flowing wells of the bottom of Tulare 
Lake and from the deeper wells of the north end of the valley are so 
heavily charged with mineral matter as not to be potable or suitable 
for irrigation purposes. Ground waters dissolve the soluble minerals 
from the rock fragments — the clay, sand, or gravel particles with 
which they are in contact. The amount thus dissolved depends upon 
the chemical combinations in which the minerals exist, some being 
much more soluble than others, and upon the length of time during 
which the waters are in contact with them. In general, the alkalies 
in the sands and gravels of the east side are in the most resistant form, 
the silicates of the granitic debris from the Sierra; the alkalies of the 
sands and gravels of the west side are in less resistant form, the sul- 
phates and carbonates of the Cretaceous and Tertiary shales and 
sandstones; hence the ground waters of the high parts of the east 
slopes of the valley, which move with comparative rapidity, are 
much purer than the waters from similar situations on the west side. 
Furthermore, the volume of water poured out upon the east-side 
fans is many times greater than that discharged upon the west side, 
so that the alkalies dissolved are greatly diluted. But down in the 
trough of the valley, especially near its north end, the ground -waters 
contain a much larger percentage of salts, even than those of the west 
side. If there were rapid circulation of ground waters here, this con- 
dition should not exist, for the dissolved salts should have been grad- 
ually carried out. The fact that the waters are highly mineralized is 
regarded then as additional evidence of sluggish circulation, or per- 
haps practical stagnation. 

QUANTITY OF GROUND WATERS. 

Little need be said of the quantity of the ground waters in the 
valley for two reasons: The first is that although it is clear that the 
quantity is enormous, it is not possible to estimate it with any exact- 
ness; the second is that the actual quantity is not of as much impor- 
tance in its use as its accessibility and the rapidity with which it is 
restored when withdrawn. 

The area of the valley is about 11,500 square miles. The depth of 
the sands and gravels which are saturated with the ground waters is 



GROtTND- WATER DEVELOPMENT. 27 

probably not less than a mile at the maximum, and may be much 
more. The average depth is equally unlmown, but wells 1,000 or 
2,000 feet deep, or even more, that are scattered throughout the val- 
ley, do not reach the bottom of the unconsolidated sands and gravels; 
so it may safely be assumed to be one-quarter of a mile and more. 
At this depth, nearly 3,000 cubic miles are saturated with ground, 
waters, and if the porosity is 20 per cent, the conclusion, is reached 
that 600 cubic miles of water underlies the valley — certainly a con- 
servative estimate. But this includes water of all qualities and those 
found at great depths. Not all of the former are usable and the 
latter are not accessible. 

ACCESSIBILITY AND AVAILABILITY OF GROUND WATERS. 

One of the most important elements in the cost of ground waters, 
of course, is their accessibility, by which is generally meant the depth 
at which they stand beneath the surface; but the depth of boring 
necessary to develop them and, if pumped, the amount that they are 
drawn down when the pumps are in operation are also important 
elements. 

The cheapest waters in general are those that flow out at the sur- 
face, even though deep wells may be necessary to develop them and 
the initial cost may therefore be great. But these waters may not 
always be most available, because they are to be had only in the lower 
parts of the valley, where, because of climatic conditions and alka- 
linity of soil, many of the lands are less valuable than those farther 
up the slopes. Generally speaking, about the borders of the valley 
the ground waters lie at the shallowest depths in the deltas and at 
the greatest depths in the interareas. The flood channels and the 
irrigation ditches are the lines along which recharge of the ground 
waters is effected; hence in their vicinity the ground-water level lies 
near the surface and the pumping lift is at a minimum. 

Beneath the west side slopes, unfortunately, where the waters are 
most needed, they are not accessible. The conditions here illustrate 
well the dependence of the ground waters upon local surface supply. 
Surface run-off is m.ost limited in this area, the ground waters lie at 
too great depth for profitable utilization, and they are usually too 
inferior in quality to be desirable even for irrigation. 

DEVELOPMENT OF GROUND WATERS. 

The development of underground water in the valley is as yet in its 
infancy. It does not compare in intensity with that in Southern 
California, where, with an irrigated district of about 225,000 acres, 
there are nearly 3,000 flowing wells, costing about $675,000 and 
yieldiQg nearly 200 cubic feet per second of water, and about 1,400 



28 



GROUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 



pumping plants in which $2,500,000 are invested, by which an aver- 
age of nearly 300 cubic feet per second of water are produced. Other 
minor wells increase the investment, but add little to the product. 
The total estimated investment in the development of ground waters, 
exclusive of the distribution systems, is about $5,000,000 in this 
restricted district and the water produced is approximately 500 cubic 
feet per second. For comparison with this development south of the 
Tehachapi, the following estimates have been prepared from the 
records of the U. S. Geological Survey to indicate the relatively meager 
development in the San Joaquin Valley. 

Ground water development in San Joaquin Valley. 



County. 


No. 
arte- 
sian 
wells. 


Esti- 
mated 
cost. 


Esti- 
mated 
yield, 
second- 
feet. 


No. 

pump- 
ing 

plants. 


Esti- 
mated 
cost, 
well and 
plant. 


Esti- 
mated 
capacity, 
second- 
feet. 


Estimated 
output. 


Total cost. 


Total 
yield. 


Kern 


112 

124 

77 

40 

31 

133 

5 


$161,400 

189,968 

112,959 
40,000 
13,237 
48,013 
3,830 


73.46 

23.31 

19.3 
7.5 
7.81 
7.95 
1 


104 
191 

3 

28 

17 

43 

9 

202 


$138,632 

244,098 

1,530 


225.84 
162. 72 

1.34 
30 
40.8 
40.93 

8.35 
250 


1 capacity. 

42.64 
i capacity. 

54.24 
1 capacity. 

5~ 

6.8 

6. 82 

1.39 

41.67 


$300, 032 
434,066 
114, 489 


116 1 


Tulare 

Kings 

Fresno 


77.55 

19.54 
12.50 


Madera 

Merced 

Stanislaus . . 


44,931 
46, 700 


58, i68 
94, 713 


14.61 
14.77 
2.39 


San Joaquin.. 


123,836 




41.67 















Total . . 


522 


569,407 


140.33 


597 


599,727 


759.98 


158.80 


1,001,468 


299. 13 



The data upon which these estimates are based are neither as 
complete nor as satisfactory as those used in Southern California, 
and therefore the conclusions must be regarded as suggestive rather 
than as accurate in detail. As an example of one of the weak points in 
the estimates, attention may be called to the column in which the 
output of the pumping plants is recorded. Generally these plants 
are used in the irrigating of alfalfa or of garden products. Some 
of them are independent sources of water; others are auxiliary to 
gravity waters and are used only when the latter are not available; 
some are in the southern part of the valley, where the rainfall is 
less than 5 inches; others are in the northern part of the valley, where 
the rainfall is more than twice as heavy, and where on this account 
less water need be applied artificially. Of course the pumps are not 
in constant operation anywhere, but the percentage of the year that 
they are run varies with local conditions. No exact estimate of 
this percentage can be made, but it has been assumed in the estimates 
that the pumps are operated the equivalent of two months con- 
tinuously, hence that their output for the year is one-sixth of what it 
would be were they in constant operation. This estimate is more 
likely to be too high than too low. In one county, Tulare, which 
includes the Portersville, Exeter, and Lindsay citrus districts, a larger 



CONDITIONS IN KERN COUNTY. 29 

factor is used. Most of the pumps in this county are used for citrus 
irrigation, and it is assumed here that their output is one- third of 
what it would be were they in continuous operation. This estimate 
should not be excessive. 

Accepting the estimates, then, as they are, we find that in the 
San Joaquin Valley there are at present between 500 and 600 flowing 
wells and a somewhat greater number of pumping plants, representing 
an investment of between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000, and yielding 
in the neighborhood of 300 cubic feet of water per second. The 
number of wells is about one-fourth that of Southern California, 
the investment is one-third, and the product about one-half, although 
the total irrigable area of the San Joaquin Valley is nearly ten times 
that of the southern field and the underground waters available are 
probably in similar ratio. This comparison, even though the figures 
upon which it is based are not complete, gives a graphic idea of the 
development that may yet be accomplished in central California 
by the full use of the ground-water resources. 

COUNTY NOTES. 

KERN COUNTY. 
GENERAL CONDITIONS. 

Kern County, which includes the extreme southern end of the 
San Joaquin Valley, receives its principal water supply, both surface 
and underground, from Kern Kiver, which flows out upon the valley 
floor just above Bakersfield. Minor amounts, chiefly as winter flood 
waters, are contributed by Poso Creek and the streams that enter 
the valley from the south and west. The supply in excess of that 
used by the canal systems flows into Buena Vista reservoir, where it is 
stored for the irrigation of the Miller and Lux lands along the trough 
of the valley to the north. During seasons of particularly heavy 
stream flow, a portion of the water escapes northward along either 
the main channel or the Goose Slough channel to Tulare Lake. 

In the course of its distribution over the delta lands through the 
canals in irrigation, and by flow through the natural distributaries, 
a definite portion of the water sinks and so maintains a condition of 
saturation of the sands and gravels that have been deposited in 
the course of the growth of the delta. These saturating waters, like 
the surface waters, move in the direction of the slope of the delta, 
but at a much slower rate. They circulate more freely through the 
coarser beds of the delta deposits, and as they pass beneath the finer 
beds that are more numerous in those parts of an alluvial fan that 
are most distant from its head, they accumulate pressure. Therefore 
when the confining beds above them are pierced by a well they rise, 



30 GEOUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

and if the pressure is sufficient they flow over the surface. These 
are the flowing artesian wefls of the Kern and Buena Vista lake beds 
and the region extending some miles north of them, and of the main 
San Joaquin Valley artesian basin, beginning in the neighborhood of 
Button Willow and extending thence northward down the San 
Joaquin Valley to the delta of the San Joaquin and Sacramento 
rivers. It may connect with the Buena Vista artesian area, although 
there is no evidence available now to determine this point. 

FLOWING WELLS. 

In 1905 there. were 112 flowing wells in the county that were 
examined, and there were doubtless a few more that were not seen. 
The yield of these was in the neighborhood of 70 or 75 second-feet. 
About one-third of the wells were used for irrigation, the remainder 
being used for stock or domestic purposes or allowed to waste use- 
lessly. The areas in which they occur are indicated by the outlines 
of the artesian basins, as shown on PI. I. 

Generally speaking, the artesian pressures have not been seriously 
affected by the developments that have taken place to date, although 
there are some wells, as in the Semi-tropic district, whose flow has 
decreased markedly as a result of the boring of big wells near by, 
but on lower ground and therefore in more favorable situations. 
Artesian wells usually deteriorate with age, as a result of any one 
of several causes, as slow filhng mth sand, clogging by gelatinous 
deposits, the growth of miscroscopic organisms, and, finally, by the 
deterioration of the casing. 

The State engineering department of Cahfornia measured the 
yield of certain flowing wells in the Kern delta in 1885, and some 
of these were remeasured in 1905. The remeasured wells show de- 
creases in yield varying from 50 to 100 per cent, but in only one of 
the wells available for comparison has there been complete cessation 
of flow. Decrease in yield of individual wells as development pro- 
gresses is so usual a phenomenon that no community can safely 
plan its future on the assumption that a cheap supply of this type 
will remain constant, even in such large basins as those of the San 
Joaquin. But flowing water should be available for years from 
those wells whose initial yield is sufficiently large to be of value. 
Later, when the communities are more thickly settled and the wells 
are so closely grouped that flow and yield are materially decreased, 
industrial conditions may have so changed that pumps can profitably 
be installed to augment the supply. The cost of such pumped waters 
will usually be particularly low because of the slight lift required 
to bring them to the surface. 



CONDITIONS IN KEEN COUNTY. 31 



PUMPING PLANTS. 



More than 100 pumping plants in Kern County develop under- 
ground water for various purposes.- Of these about 40 are gas 
plants, 25 are steam plants, and the rest are electric. The developed 
waters are used for irrigation, for city supplies, for engine waters, 
and as supplies for steam plants, as at the pumping stations of the 
Pacific Coast Oil Company. 

In the district about Bakersfield 50 pumping plants are in use to 
develop irrigation water. Half of these are electrically operated and 
belong to the Kern County Land Company. Each of these plants is 
equipped with 30 or 40 horsepower motors directly connected with 
No. 8, 10, or 12 centrifugal pumps. Each pump is connected with 
from three to five 13-inch wells, the number being determined by 
the yield of each well. From the data collected on these wells, the 
following cost averages were computed, on the basis of the quoted 
charge of 15 cents per horsepower per 24 hours, for the electric 
power used. 

Data concerning pumping plants in Kern County. 

Average depth to the water from the surface, in feet 10 

Average suction 20 feet. Average total lift, in feet 30 

Total yield of 25 plants, in second-feet 100. 34 

Total horsepower consumed 860 

Total cost per day to develop 100.34 sec. feet, 860 H. P., at 15 cents. $129. 00 

Cost per second-foot for 24 hours $1. 29 

Cost per acre-foot of water developed $0. 65 

E. M. Roberts, of Bakersfield, has furnished the following data 
as to cost of operation on a privately owned steam plant, which 
has a particularly advantageous location: 

Data concerning steam pumping plant at Bakersfield. 

Equipment: 30 H. P. steam engine, No. 12 centrifugal pump, five 15-inch 
wells 40 feet deep; 6 feet to water, 15-foot suction, 21 feet total lift: 

Cost of crude oil (fuel) and lubricant for 24 hours $2. 25 

Cost of labor 24 hours $4. 00 

Total cost |6. 25 

Yield of plant 7 second-feet. 

Cost per second-foot for 24 hours $0. 89 

Cost per acre-foot of water developed |0. 45 

Neither of these estimates makes any allowance for interest on 
investment in well and plant nor for deterioration, hence the costs as 
given are somewhat too low. It must be remembered, moreover, 
that Mr. Roberts's plant is in a particularly favorable situation, being 
close to the banks of the Kern, where the supply is regular and the 
lift slight. The standard of water costs in this district is set by the 



32 GEOUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

price of gravity water from the Kern, 75 cents per second-foot for 24 
hours, or about 38 cents per acre-foot, where distribution is affected 
by sales. 

The pumped water therefore costs from 20 to 100 per cent more 
than the gravity water, and its cost will increase as it is developed 
from deeper strata with higher lifts. It seems to be quite generally 
believed locally that water at these prices can not be used profitably. 

This may be true with the wasteful methods employed, the exces- 
sive amounts of water often applied, the class of crops produced, and 
the general lack of intensive cultivation; but it has been clearly 
proved in other communities and by individual experiences in the 
Bakersfield region itself that with more diversified or better selected 
crops, smaller individual holdings, and more intensive methods of 
farming, good profits may be made from the alkali-free lands of the 
delta and plains by the careful use of water at these or at even 
higher prices. It is safe to predict that the most important future 
developments in Kern County will result from the application of 
these principles. 

Under any conditions that are likely to obtain in the near future 
it is not to be expected that ground waters at greater depths than 
25 or 30 feet below the surface as an extreme will be usable for 
irrigation purposes. Water at this or less depth exists, of course, 
throughout the artesian areas along the lowest parts of the valley. 
It is to be found also throughout the greater part of the Kern delta 
and in the lower parts of the Poso Creek delta from a point about 
halfway between Famoso and Wasco westward. Near the foothills 
on each side of the valley, the ground water is not accessible except 
under unusual conditions, as in the flood plains of the larger rivers, 
or in areas where particularly valuable products, such as citrus 
fruits, will justify the expense of pumping to exceptional l^eights. In 
the intermediate areas between the deltas of the streams that supply 
the ground water, it is also apt to be too deep to be accessible. This 
condition is illustrated in the area between the Kern and Poso 
Creek deltas, east of Shafter station, on the Santa Fe railroad, and 
in the region between Delano and the foothills just south of the 
Tulare county line. 

Near the northern edge of the county the main artesian belt of 
the valley, whose southern end is in the vicinity of Button Willow, 
expands to a width of 26 or 27 miles measured along the county line. 
Much of this central portion of the valley along the north edge of 
Kern County is in large holdings and is therefore but thinly settled, 
but developments are ample to prove the artesian conditions and to 
permit outlining the artesian belt with a fair degree of accuracy. 



CONDITIONS IN TULARE COUNTY. 33 

The outlines as determined are shown on the accompan3ang map 
(PI. I), which also shows by means of hydrographic contours the 
depth to the ground-water level outside the artesian limits. 

Although little direct evidence bearing upon this point exists, 
there can be no doubt that beneath the broad, steeply sloping west- 
side plains of Kern County the water is too poor in quality to be 
usable, except perhaps for stock, and that a few miles back from the 
trough of the valley it is too deep to be accessible. Generally, 
the water table beneath these west-side plains has but little slope, 
the depth to it at any point being approximately equal to the elevation 
of that point above the trough of the valley. 

TULARE COUNTY. 
GENERAL CONDITIONS. 

Tulare County, lying north of Kern and east of Kings, includes 
the eastern edge of the large central artesian basin at its widest 
part, all of the delta of Kaweah and Tule rivers and a part of that 
of Kings River, and the famous citrus region of the foothills and the 
higher parts of the valley floor about Porterville, Exeter, and Lindsay. 
It also includes, in the southwestern corner, a part of the old bed of 
Tulare Lake and a part of the district submerged during the last 
extremely high water, in 1880. The high water of 1905-1907 did 
not quite reach the Tulare County line. 

Kings, Kaweah, and Tulare rivers are the chief sources of such 
additions to the ground waters as are made in this county, as they 
are the sources of the surface waters used by the various canal sys- 
tems.^ Each of these streams has a distinct though rather flat delta, 
and the attitude of the ground-water plane indicates that the stream 
channels and canals along the crests of the deltas are the direct 
sources of the ground waters in the higher portion of the valley within 
Tulare County, and that from these lines of supply the waters per- 
colate toward the lower parts of the valley and toward the areas 
between the deltas. These interareas receive only the slight direct 
supply from rainfall and from the minor streams that drain the 
foothills. 

Within the artesian basin south and west of Tulare the ground 
waters, although receiving local additions within the county, are 
a part of the general body of ground waters of the central valley, 
stored there as a result of accumulation from all sources during 
centuries past, and are in general slow in motion northward along the 
valley axis. 

a An account of these systems was published in Water-Supply Papers, U. S. Geol. Survey, Nos. 17 and 18. 
These papers are not now obtainable, but may be consulted in libraries. 

57280— iRR 222—08 3 



34 • GEOUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

FLOWING WELLS. 

In the 365 or 370 square miles of artesian- water land within the 
county there were about 125 flowing wells in 1905, representing 
an investment of between $150,000 and $200,000. Nearly 100 of 
these wells were used for irrigation, and the combined yield of all of 
them was estimated at less than 25 second-feet. The greater number 
of them are 7 inches or more in diameter, while a few old wells are of 
smaller bore. They are most numerous on the Kaweah delta west of 
Tulare and somewhat farther south, west of Tipton and Pixley. 
Pasture lands, alfalfa, gardens, deciduous fruits, and vineyards are 
irrigated by the use of the waters developed. 

PUMPING PLANTS. 

Irrigation by the use of pumped water is more extensively prac- 
ticed in Tulare County than anywhere else in the valley. This is due 
to the development of citrus culture along the foothills between 
Tulare Eiver and Kaweah River, where methods in vogue in the 
citrus districts south of the Tehachapi have been introduced. There 
were in all about 170 pumping plants in use for irrigation in 1905 
while a number of others were in use for domestic or town supplies. 
Of the total number, 125 were electrically driven and procured their 
power from one company; 45 were gas or steam plants. 

These plants are adapted to a wide variety of conditions, some 
of them pumping from wells in which the water stands at the surface, 
and others lifting it from a depth of 100 feet. In the irrigation of 
some of the hillside citrus groves water is forced to heights of several 
hundred feet, usually from a reservoir into which it is pumped from 
the wells. The best equipped plants that overcome lifts of less than 
75 or 80 feet use centrifugal pumps directly connected with motors; 
when the lifts are greater some form of deep- well plunger pump is 
used. 

In the Lindsay district the ground-water level varies greatly each 
year, falling during the pumping season and rising again in the 
winter and spring. To keep the pumps and motors within the 
suction limit during the low-water period, and at the same time pre- 
vent their submersion during the winter season, some of the ranchers 
have adopted the plan of placing the machinery in a tank. In one 
plant examined, the motor and pump were fastened to a movable 
platform that could be raised or lowered in adjustment to the varying 
ground-water level. 

The Badger Irrigation Company at Exeter has a particularly 
interesting plant because of the high lift of waters for irrigation 
purposes. There are three substations in the lowlands that deliver 
water to several citrus tracts at the base of the foothills, and to a 



CONDITIONS IN TULARE COUNTY. 35 

laro-e reservoir. From this reservoir the water is forced on up the 
hill by a special design triple-plunger pump operated by a 75 horse- 
power motor. This pump has a capacity of 75 miner's inches from 
the 66-foot lateral to the 247-foot lateral; of 53 miner's inches from 
the 300-foot lateral to the 400-foot lateral; and of 36 miner's inches 
from the 530-foot lateral to the 586-foot lateral. 

Difficulty was experienced when the plant was first installed because 
the pipe used was too light to resist the great pressure. At present 
three-eighths inch cast iron pipe of 6, 8, and 10 inch diameter is in 
successful use. 

COST OF PUMPED AVATER. 

The charge made for power in this district by the Mount Whitney 
Power Company is $50 per year per horsepower for current used 
continuously, which equals 13.7 cents per horsepower for 24 hours; 
$30 per year per horsepower for current used in daylight only, which 
equals 8.8 cents per horsepower per day of 12 hours. 

Estimates were made of the yield and cost of vf ater from 50 plants 
using power on the first basis, with the following results: 

Cost of water at fifty plants. 

Average lift, in feet 79 

Total yield of 50 plants, in second-feet 24. 5 

Total horsepower consumed 509. 6 

Total cost per day, 509.6 horsepower at 13.7 cents $69. 81 

Cost per second-foot per day $2. 85 

Cost per acre-foot $1. 43 

Cost to lift 1 second-foot 1 foot for 24 hours |0. 036 

Another estimate is given below of the cost of water from another 
group of 8 plants in the same district: 

Cost of ivater at eight plants. 

Average lift, in feet 30 

Total >ield, in second-feet 8. 44 

Total horsepower consumed 106. 9 

Total cost per day, 106.9 horsepower at 13.7 cents $14. 65 

Cost per second-foot per day $1. 75 

Cost per acre-foot $0. 88 

Cost to lift 1 second-foot 1 foot for 24 hours $0. 058 

These estimates indicate in a general way what irrigators are doing 
in this district under present conditions. 

PERMANENCE OF THE GROUND-WATER SUPPLY. 

Most artesian basins are very sensitive to development, old 
wells decreasing in yield as ne^v ones are installed, the shallow wells 
and those about the upper, outer edge of the basin being the first to 
show signs of failure. Diminution in the flow of the less favorably 



36 GEOUND WATEES OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

situated wells will take place in actual practice long before the basin 
is overtaxed, hence some alarm is likely to be felt and some individual 
loss may occur before alarm is justified by conditions. In addition to 
the normal diminution of flow in wells due to physical deterioration in 
casing or to other causes not related to a general loss of head and 
reduction in supply, a new well drilled in the neighborhood of an old 
one, or so situated as to draw in part from the same general zone of 
saturated porous materials, will affect the yield of the first, although 
the combined yields of the two are much greater than that of either 
alone and much less than the supply. 

Until wells are withdrawing water from an area more rapidly than 
it is supplied, even though there may be reduction in the yield of 
individual wells, there is no cause for alarm. It is difficult to deter- 
mine when tliis point is reached in an artesian basin because diminu- 
tion in flowing wells begins soon after development has begun, but 
when waters are pumped it is less difficult to tell. The continued 
lowering of the ground-water level in a pumped well, through years 
of average or abundant rainfall with gradually increasing lifts and 
correspondingly increasing costs, indicates overuse. 

A comparison of the flows of a number of artesian wells in Tulare 
County, measured first by the California State engineering depart- 
ment in 1885, and twenty years later by the United States Geological 
Survey, indicates, as is to be expected, a general diminution of yield, 
this decrease varying from 40 to 90 per cent. A part of it is undoubt- 
edly due to the installation of new wells in recent years, but much 
of it is to be accounted for by the clogging and filling of the wells and 
the rusting of the casing. In any event the losses are not serious, and 
in view of the immensity of the basin and the large supplies that 
reach it annually, it can not be considered to have approached the 
point of overuse. 

This observation, however, does not hold for some of the areas in 
which pumping is most intense. The lands favorable for citrus 
culture are distributed along a frost-free belt on the lower foothills 
and adjacent high parts of the valley floor. The zone of most intense 
pumping is along the eastern edge of the valley, between the deltas 
of Tulare and Kaweah rivers. The ground waters here receive some 
slight accessions from local run-off from the foothills and from minor 
streams that flow out from them, but their principal source is the 
constant supply that sinks in the deltas of the major streams and 
percolates thence slowly in all directions. 

On the deltas themselves, especially along their lower portions, 
where so much damage has been done in recent years as a result of 
over-irrigation, the consequent rise of the ground-water plane and 
with it the alkali, pumping is most helpful; in fact, pumping will 
doubtless be one of the means by which the damage done by over- 
irrigation in the past will be remedied in the future; but in Tulare 



CONDITIONS IN KINGS COUNTY. 87 

County pumping thus far has been concentrated, upon those points 
remote from the deUas and from the trough of the valley, where 
supplies are least rapidly replenished. As a result there has been a 
noticeable lowering of the water plane in recent years and an increased 
cost of the water product. As a matter of safety to the orchards 
already producing, means should be taken to prevent the installation 
of additional pumping plants in those parts of the citrus belt where 
development is now most intense and the effects upon the ground 
water have been most clearly discerned, for it is obviously more 
important to protect the orchards that are already producing than 
to plant more. 

KINGS COUNTY. 
GENERAL CONDITIONS. 

The valley portion of Kings County includes the present and past 
Tulare Lake bottoms and the southern slope of the lower Kings 
River delta. Tulare basin is the lowest point in the southern section 
of the valley and is the area in which all surplus waters from Kings 
River southward accumulate. The flood waters of Kings River are 
divided on its delta, part of them flowing northward to join the San 
Joaquin drainage, while the other part flows into Tulare Lake. Dur- 
ing years of low or moderate snowfall and rainfall in the Sierra, 
practically all the flow of Kern, Tulare, Kaweah, and Kings rivers is 
used in irrigation, and there is but little excess to escape to the basin; 
but during years of heavy precipitation great volumes of water 
accumulate in the Tulare lowlands. This basin is very shallow. Its 
shores have gentle slopes, hence the area of the lake fluctuates widely, 
with slight changes in the depth of the water in it. Since settlement 
began in the San Joaquin Valley it has had a complex history. 
Grunsky has summarized what is known of its earlier history in 
Water-Supply Paper No. 17,«pp. 16 and 17. From his account that 
part of the following resume which deals with conditions prior to 
1897 is condensed: 

Resume of history of Tulare Lake. 
1853. High. 
1853-1861. Subsidence; elevation of surface in 1861, 204 feet. 
1861-1863. Rapid rise to highest known stage, 220 feet above sea level, overflowing 

into San Joaquin River; area about 800 square miles. 
1863-1867. Decline to about 208 or 209 feet above tide. 
1867-1868. Filled again to about 220 feet above tide. 
1872-1876. Fluctuated between 211 and 217 feet. 
1876-1883. Decline to 192 feet; lowest stage then known. 
1883-1897. Fluctuating; generally low. 
1897-1905. Decline; dry in autumn of 1905. 
1905-1907. Rise; elevation of water surface in summer of 1907, 193 feet; area of water 

surface summer of 1907, 300 square miles. 

a This paper is not now available for distribution. 



38 GEOUND WATEES OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

A knowledge of the history of this lake makes clear the origin and 
character of the soils of all except the northern part of Kings County, 
where the alluvial-fan or ''delta" conditions so general in the San 
Joaquin valley prevail. 

Evidences of the former occupancy of the lowlands by the lake 
appear everywhere. Faintly marked sandy beaches encircle the 
depression at various elevations and over these beaches are strewn 
the shells of the mollusks that lived in the lake. In its lowest parts, 
dry and planted in grain in 1905, the fine sediments that settled in 
the lake bottom make a fertile alluvial soil. 

It is to be presumed that the history of the lake for many centuries 
has been like that part of it which we know directly, i.e., that it has 
fluctuated in area and depth, occasionally drying out completely, then 
filling to the point of overflow. Under such conditions relatively 
little of the water which it has contained can have escaped by surface 
overflow; the greater part of it has evaporated or has been absorbed 
by the sands and silts of the lake bottom. 

With the shrinking of the lake during the years preceding the 
inflow of 1906, its old floor was placed under cultivation and valuable 
crops of grain were produced. This successful grain culture proves 
the nonalkaline character of the present surface of the old lake 
bottom, but the saline waters yielded by numerous shallow flowing 
wells within it indicate the presence of alkalies at slight depths. The 
few wells available as evidence in and about the borders of the old 
lake, however, indicate that the deeper wells obtain the better water. 

Most of those that extend to depths of 1,000 feet or more develop 
waters sufficiently pure for irrigation or for drinking purposes. 

FLOWING WELLS. 

There are probably as yet less than 100 flowing wells in Kings 
County (77 were visited by Geological Survey representatives in 1905), 
yielding approximately 20 second-feet. Probably not more than 
one-third of the wells are used for irrigation, a large number of small- 
bore shallow wells being used for stock and for domestic purposes. 
The northern part of the county, in the vicinity of Hanford, Armona, 
and Lemoore, is well supplied w ith surface water by the canal systems 
that head in Kings River, and is a most productive, thoroughly culti- 
vated area. Ground waters are not needed and no serious attempt 
has been made to utilize them here. 

In the vicinity of Corcoran, Waukena, and Angiola, however, a 
successful colony has been established that depends almost entirely 
upon ground waters. A number of deep wells have been put down 
to depths of 900 to 1,600 feet, which yield flowing waters in amounts 
ranging from 5 to 40 miner's inches. Shallow wells have also been 



CONDITIONS IN FRESNO COUNTY. 39 

bored and pumping plants have been installed over them. The 
tract includes about 30,000 acres, and alfalfa, cereals, sugar beets, 
dairy and garden products, and fruits are produced successfully. 

FRESNO COUNTY. 
GENERAL CONDITIONS. 

Because of the fact that San Joaquin River forms the boundary 
that separates it from Madera County, Fresno County extends 25 or 
30 miles farther north along the trough of the valley and along the 
west side than along the east slope. Thus the greater part of its 
lowland area is in arid west-side plains and in the relatively thinly 
settled central valley between Kings River at Lemoore and Laton 
and San Joaquin River at Mendota and Jameson. 

Its best known, most densely populated, and most productive area 
is, of course, that about the city of Fresno, on the middle east-side 
plains, on the Kings River delta. This rich and populous region is 
irrigated by gravity water, distributed by a network of canals that 
take their supply from the river. These irrigation systems have been 
fully described by Grunsky.^ 

A later Water -Supply Paper, by Lippincott,^ deahng with the 
possibihty of storage and the development of water power on Kings 
River, embodies the results of a close study of the ground waters and 
their relation to alkaline conditions by Louis Mesmer and Thomas H. 
Means. From this report the following quotations are taken: 

The natural drainage of these lands is toward the southeast at the rate of about 6 
feet to the mile. The soil is largely granitic sand, and below an average depth of 10 or 
15 feet it is satui-ated with water. The sm-face water is somewhat alkaline and there- 
fore it is not advisable to pump it for irrigation. Water below a depth of 50 feet can be 
considered satisfactory for irrigation. This is based on tests of more than 800 wells in 
the district, some of them being in sections where there were the strongest sm-face alka- 
line indications. In every case this lower water was found to be good, and when the 
strata near the surface are penetrated it rises to the elevation stated. There have been 
few attempts to pump water in larger quantity than is required for domestic pm'poses. 
A 2-inch screw pipe, put down to an average depth of 50 feet, landing the pipe on a 
stratum of clay, and then boring through the clay and allowing the water to come in 
from the bottom of the hole, is always ample for this purpose. 

* * -H- * * * -H- 

A few small pumping plants have been installed — one 5 miles east of Fresno, on the 
Minnewawa ranch; several around Selma, and two near Wildflower — which yield at 
least 0.5 second-foot to a 7-inch unperforated well not more than 70 feet deep; with a 
lift not to exceed 20 feet in any case. Wells of 10-inch or 12-inch casing should be put 
down to a depth of about 100 feet on an average and should not be perforated above 50 
feet below the surface, thus shutting off all possible chance of drawing from the more or 
less alkaline surface water. It is probable that wells of this size and depth would each 
furnish 1.5 second-feet. * * * 

a Water-Supply Paper, XJ. S, Geol. Survey, No. 18, p. 39 et seq. Out of print. May be consulted in 
libraries. 
b Water-Supply Paper, U. S. Geol. Survey, No. 58. Out of print. May be consulted in libraries. 



40 GROUND WATEES OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

The result of pumping, * * * would be to improve the conditions rather than to 
increase the troubles from alkali. The water table would be lowered sufficiently to 
permit the washing down of the alkali salts, and the salts, instead of being confined to 
the surface layers of the soil, would gradually be distributed * * * and thus rendered 
harmless. The lowering of the water table would be of the greatest assistance in the 
reclamation of the lands aheady alkaline, and would probably permit this reclamation 
without extensive underdrains. 

In a report by Lewis A. Hicks on the ^'Generation and transmission 
of electric power and installation of pumping plants/' included in 
Water-Supply Paper No. 58, an estimate has been made of the cost 
of water pumped from the ground-water supply by electric power 
generated on Kings River. The estimates are made on the basis of 
100 pumping stations, each with a maximum capacity of 5 second- 
feet and an average Hft of 45 feet, and the probable cost of the water 
produced is given as 50 cents per acre-foot when the pumping plants 
operate 328 J days per year and $1.43 when the pumping plants 
operate 100 days per year. 

Among the conclusions reached by Mr. Lippincott after a thorough 
investigation of conditions on the Kings River delta are the following : 

(5) Pumping plants can be established and operated which will furnish 1,000 acre- 
feet of water every day at a cost not much greater than that now paid for gravity 
water from the canals, to supplement the present summer supply or to extend the 
irrigated areas. 

(6) The operation of the pumping plants will partially, if not wholly, prevent the 
rising of alkali to the surface of irrigated lands. 

The rise of the ground waters presents a difficult problem in prac- 
tically all of the delta lands of the San Joaquin Valley, and is merely 
particularly well exemplified in the Kings River delta in Fresno 
County. Mr. Grunsky states that the rise in ground waters since 
the beginning of irrigation is from 10 to as much as 50 feet in parts 
of the delta. One great difficulty that arises in dealing with the 
problem is due to the fact that the injury is done in one locality 
while a large part of the cause may be in another. The lower part 
of the delta lands are the chief sufferers from the rise of the ground 
waters, but the cause is to be found in the irrigation on the higher 
lands as well as on those affected. Over portions of the central arte- 
sian basin and about its borders the ground waters have always 
stood close to the surface, and much of the land was alkaline before 
there was any settlement in the valley. The effect of the irrigation 
on the higher lands has been to extend this saturated and alkaline 
zone slowly up the slope toward the eastern margin of the valley. 
As a result of this extension it has encroached to a certain extent 
upon lands that were valuable. 

Without storage the gravity waters will not serve an acreage 
greatly in excess of that supplied by them now, and the pumping 
plants that must be installed to secure future growth will in addition 



CONDITIONS IN FKESNO COUNTY. 41 

serve a most valuable function in drainage, tending to prevent the 
extension of alkaline conditions and aiding in the reclamation of 
lands already alkaline. 

FLOWING WELLS. 

The flowing wells of the artesian belt of Fresno County are sparsely 
scattered over a broad area along the trough of the valley. There 
are only about 40 of them, all told, and they range in depth from 
less than 100 to 1,500 feet, the latter being the depth of one of the 
wells belonging to the Johns estate, north of Summit Lake. In the 
district adjacent to Lemoore, south of Kings River, small flows, 
sufficient for stock and domestic purposes, are obtained at 150 feet 
and less; but farther north no shallow wells are found. 

Those on the James and Herminghause ranches, south of the San 
Joaquin River, are 600 to 800 feet deep. The flowing wells of the 
larger ranches were bored generally to obtain a supply of water for 
stock at times when none is available in the sloughs and irrigating 
ditches. Irrigation in these large holdings is as yet accomplished 
only during the flood season when abundant gravity water is avail- 
able for lavish use. The possibility of using ground waters for such 
purposes is scarcely considered, although on one of the James ranches 
the water from a flowing well is used to irrigate about 50 acres of 
alfalfa. 

The waters west of the San Joaquin River in Fresno County, 
whether within or without the flowing- well area, contain large pro- 
portions of salts in solution. This is a condition that is true of west- 
side waters everywhere within the valley, and apparently of all very 
deep waters near its northern end. South of Mendota, where the 
river no longer forms the eastern border of the county, the area within 
which waters of the east-side type appear extends 5 or 6 miles east 
of the valley axis. All of the waters of the upper east slope are 
very pure, but as they approach the lowest part of the valley they 
gradually assume the character of the waters there. In addition to 
the increase in the percentage of dissolved solids from the east 
toward the west across the valley, there seems likewise to be an 
increase from the south northward.. The shallow flowing wells of 
Lemoore and vicinity contain very moderate amounts of salts in 
solution, while those in the vicinity of Mendota and Firebaugh and 
farther north carry from 1,000 to 20,000 or more parts per million. 

The great west-side plains, with their productive soil, freedom from 
hardpan, good drainage, and favorable situation, are nonproductive 
because of their aridity, and must remain so until water can be applied 
to them. The ground waters beneath them are poor in quality and 
are deep. The ground-water plane seems to be nearly horizontal, 
such evidence as is at hand indicating a slope of only about 2 to 5 feet 



42 GROUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

per mile; hence it is nearly as far to ground water beneath any part 
of these plains as the plains themselves are above the lowest part of 
the valley. If experiments should prove that they will successfully 
produce citrus fruits or other high-priced products, then it may be 
that water can be pumped to them from the valley and the venture 
made commercially practicable despite the great expense involved, 
for it is to be remembered that water is pumped to heights of several 
hundred feet in Tulare and San Bernardino counties in localities 
where it can be used on good citrus lands with an excellent margin of 
profit. 

At present the west slope is nearly without permanent residents. 
There are perhaps a dozen settlers between Panoche Greek and the 
Coalinga Branch of the Southern Pacific. Sheep camps, occupied 
temporarily in winter, are scattered over them. In the early nineties 
a few seasons of heavy rainfall led to settlement about Huron, and 
two or three crops of grain were harvested, but since then there has 
not been sufficient rainfall to mature a crop, and the plains have been 
abandoned to the sheep men who rent the grazing privileges from the 
large landholders, notably the Southern Pacific Railway Company, 
for 6 cents per acre per annum. 

MADERA COUNTY. 
GENERAL CONDITIONS. 

The valley portion of Madera County is limited on the south and 
west by San Joaquin River and on the north by the Chowchilla. Irri- 
gation by the use of surface water is practiced about Madera through 
the utilization of Fresno River waters in the early summer, when they 
are available, and about Minturn, near the north edge of the county, 
by the similar use of Chowchilla River waters. Both of these streams 
have small mountain drainage basins, so that the flow from them is 
not prolonged late into the summer. 

The extreme western edge of the county is also under irrigation 
from gravity waters. The Chowchilla canal heads on the north side 
of the San Joaquin, about 6 miles east of Mendota, and runs north- 
ward, generally parallel to the river, for about 20 miles, commanding 
a strip 5 or 6 miles wide between it and the river. The greater part of 
the rest of the county is as yet grain land or pasture land, intensive 
cultivation being practiced only locally. 

FLOWING WELLS. 

The ground waters have not been drawn upon to any extent for 
irrigation in the developments that have taken place thus far. There 
are about 30 flowing wells in the 350 square miles of artesian water- 
bearing land in the county, and these are practically all used for 
watering stock on the Chowchilla ranch and the Miller and Lux 



CONDITIONS IN MADERA COUNTY. 43 

properties. The total yield for all of the flowing wells is estimated 
to be less than 8 cubic feet per second, although at least one of the 
individual wells yields more than 1 cubic foot per second. These 
Avells are generally shallow, depths of 200 to 400 feet being usual. 
Some of them are among the oldest in California, having been drilled 
nearly forty years ago, and while there has been some lessening in 
yield it is undoubtedly due to deterioration of the casing and to clog- 
ging. A table of measurements made at different periods is appended : 

Yield of flowing ivells in Madera County. 



Location. 


Yield in miner's inches. 


1871. 


1884. 


1905. 


Sec. 21-10-14 


20 
22 
"i 


13 

18 
6 
3 
5 

23 


10 


Sec. 4-11-15 


11 


Sec. 25-10-15 




Sec. 10-10-14 - 


1.1 


12 


Sec. 23-10-13 


9 


Sec. 14 10-13 


12 







The well in section 16-10-14 was recently cleaned and responded 
with a stronger flow than it had ever yielded before. The fact of a 
well-maintained pressure and supply is further indicated by the strong 
flow^s of new wells put down in the vicinity of older ones, tapping the 
same water bearing beds. 

It is evident that these cheap waters can be developed in large 
volume in the western part of Madera County if it is desired. 

PUMPING PLANTS. 

About 15 pumping plants in the county are used for irrigation. 
Most of these are in the vicinity of Borden, where the ground-water 
level lies at a depth of from 10 to 20 feet. The pumps pull the water 
level down locally 15 or 20 feet, so that the total lift is usually 25 to 
40 feet. Irrigators estimate that under these conditions they can 
deliver water for about 75 cents per acre-foot for fuel and labor. Even 
lower figures are given for the best equipped plants. The following 
estimates are recorded from the plant of A. L. Sayre: 

Estimated cost of pumping water in Madera County. 

Equipment, 60 horsepower gas engine, No. 10 centrifugal pump. Three 10 
and 12 inch wells, 110 feet deep; depth to water, 16 feet; suction, 22 feet; 
total lift, 38 feet. 

Cost of fuel per day of 24 hours $5. 47 

Cost of labor per day of 24 hours. 3. 35 

Total 8. 82 

Yield of plant, second-feet 6. 23 

Cost per second-foot for 24 hours $1. 41 

Cost per acre-foot $0. 71 



44 GROUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

Interest on investment and deterioration of plant, of course, 
increase this cost somewhat; yet, it is certainly well within the 
limits of profitable use. Practically everywhere within that part 
of the county west of the Southern Pacific, except near the bluffs of 
San Joaquin Kiver, pumping waters are accessible. As the foothills 
are approached, depth to ground water increases and the lift necessary 
m their development increases correspondingly. 

MERCED COUNTY. 
GENERAL CONDITIONS. 

Merced County, unlike Madera County, extends entirely across the 
San Joaquin Valley and thus includes both east-side and west-side 
conditions. The gradual amelioration northward of the aridity of 
the south end of the San Joaquin Valley becomes noticeable at this 
latitude; hence, the raising of grain without irrigation, which is 
possible on the east side as far south as Fresno County, is usually 
successful on the west side in the northern part of Merced County. 

Irrigation by surface waters is accomplished principally by the 
utilization of San Joaquin and Merced River waters. The lower line 
of the San Joaquin and Kings River canal, which leaves the river 
near Mendota in Fresno County, extends entirely across the west side 
of Merced County and into Stanislaus County. The high-line canal 
of the same system also extends from the southern to within a few 
miles of the northern edge of the county. This irrigation work com- 
mands much. the larger portion of the west-side plain. The zone of 
un watered land, between the high-line canal and. the foothills, is 
relatively narrow. 

The most important east-side system is the Crocker-Huffman canal, 
which taps Merced River about 2 miles below Merced Falls and 
serves an extensive section east and north of the county seat. The 
Stevenson-Mitchell canal heads in San Joaquin River about 14 miles 
southwest of Merced and commands a belt from 3 to 4 miles wide 
between this point and the mouth of Merced River. The principal 
settlement below this canal, the Stevenson colony, is between the 
lower Merced and the San Joaquin. 

North of Merced River, the Turlock irrigation district extends 
into Merced County from Tuolumne County, in which lie the greater 
part of the lands covered by the system. In addition to these major 
systems, there are a number of minor canals along the Merced River 
bottoms. On the whole, however, the county is thinly settled and 
but a small portion of it is under irrigation. Perhaps three-fourths 
of the valley lands are devoted to dry farming, the production of hay 
and grain, or to pasturage. 



CONDITIONS IN MERCED COUNTY. 45 

The territory east and north of Merced, the PLa,insburo^ and Le Grand 
districts in the southeastern part of the county, much of the foothiU 
area, and the greater part of the strip on the north side of Merced River 
are producing hay and grain, while the greater part of the area between 
the Southern Pacific Railw^ay (main fine) and San Joaquin River is in 
pasture. Part of this pasture land was at one time tilled, but for various 
reasons, among them the rise of alkali, tihage has ceased, and the lands 
have been returned to pasture. On the west side the strip above the 
canals and between them and the hills is generally in grain from Dos 
Palos northward. South of DosPalos this strip is utilized principally as 
sheep range. 

FLOWING WELLS. 

The use of ground waters, like surface irrigation, is more usual in 
Merced than in Madera County, although it has not as yet become 
extensive in either area. The total number of flowing wells in the 
county is between 125 and 150. The greater number of these wells are 
shallow, from 100 to 400 feet deep, and their yield is correspondingly 
small. As the most of them w^ere drilled twenty or twenty-five years 
ago, not for irrigation but for domestic purposes and for stock, they 
fulfill the function for which they were intended. Of the 133 wells 
of which the Geological Survey has records, but 15 are reported as 
used for irrigation, and even these are generally used on a small 
alfalfa patch or garden of but little importance. The total yield of 
all the flowing wells in the county is estimated at less than 8 second- 
feet. That large yields may be secured is indicated by the experience 
of the Crocker-Huffman Company in sinking a 2,000-foot test well 
for oil in the spring of 1902 in sec. 15, T. 7 S., R. 13 E. No oil was 
found, but this well, although near the eastern edge of the flowing 
well area, as indicated by the shallow developments to date, yielded 
what is reported to have been the largest flow in the Merced district. 
When the casing was pulled the flow ceased, doubtless because of 
leakage into the upper strata. The w^ater is said to have been soft 
and of fine quality. 

By far the greater number of the flowing wells in the county are on 
the east side, south and west of Merced. The west-side developments 
are very meager. This is doubtless due in part to the fact that 
t'he San Joaquin and Kings River canal system supplies plenty of 
cheap gravity water to this district, but it is affected also by the fact 
that the west-side underground waters are of inferior quality. The 
flowing wells particularly, which must be deep, yield very bad waters. 
Some of them are too saline for irrigation. A few of the shallow wells 
near the main canals or the large laterals supply water sufficiently 
soft for any purpose. Most of the deeper w^aters along the axis of the 



46 GKOUND WATEKS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

valley, as well as those along the west side, are alkaline. The experi- 
ence of some of the irrigators in the Stevenson colony, who have found 
that the waters from certain flowing wells can not be used safely in 
the irrigation of fruit, proves this. In general, it may he said that 
the best ground waters are found well up the east slope, and that there 
is a progressive deterioration westward. 

PUMPING PLANTS. 

There are between 40 and 50 pumping plants in the county, most 
of them equipped with gas engines. More than half of these are used 
to develop irrigating waters, and the remainder are used chiefly for 
domestic or town supplies. Grain, fruit, alfalfa, berries, sweet 
potatoes, etc., are the principal crops raised by the ranchers, who use 
pumping plants for irrigation. They express themselves as satisfied 
with the results and convinced that pump irrigation in many parts 
of Merced County may be made highly successful. 

In the Atwater and Livingston districts, as well as about Plains- 
burg and Le Grand, plants have already proved practicable. Through- 
out much of the east side, to the west, south, and east of Merced, the 
ground-water level is within 20 feet or less of the surface, and where 
soils are favorable, such accessible ground waters may be utilized to 
advantage in pumping operations. 

Merced, like other east-side counties, includes a belt between the 
trough of the valley and the foothills that contains more or less alkali 
because of the proximity of the ground waters to the surface. In 
certain parts of this belt alkalinity has increased in recent years as the 
result of irrigation by means of gravity waters supplied by the 
Crocker-Huffman system. In such areas, if the lands are still pro- 
ductive, pumping, either as an independent source of irrigation water, 
or as an auxiliary to the gravity S3^stem, is most to be desired. It 
results in benefit to the community in several ways. In the first 
place, it is a method of drainage. The, water that is supplied to the 
land is drawn from beneath it. The tendency of the ground waters 
to rise with irrigation is thereby counteracted and the ground water 
level is kept down. In the second place, there is no overuse. Each 
acre-foot of water developed costs a fixed sum. Under these con- 
ditions more will not be used than is needed and the usual tendency 
of the ground-water plane to rise with irrigation will not be manifest. 
Again, pumping and the use of relatively high-priced water encour- 
ages intensive cultivation and this again reduces the quantity of 
water necessary. Frequent cultivation and the creation thereby of a 
mulch at the surface has long been recognized as one of the effective 
means of prevention of loss of water b}^ evaporation from the surface. 
Whether lands already damaged by alkali as a result of the applica- 



CONDITION'S IN STANISLAUS COUNTY. 47 

tion of too mucli water can be reclaimed and utilized by pumping, 
under the economic conditi(ms that now exist, is an unsettled question; 
but there is no doubt that the irrigation of undamaged lands whose 
water plane lies within 20 or 25 feet can be carried out successfully 
where intensive farming methods are used, and that the rise of 
alkalies in such lands will be prevented. 

STANISLAUS COUNTY. 

GENERAL CONDITIONS. 

Stanislaus C'ounty, like Merced, extends entirely across San Joaquin 
Valley, and therefore both east-side and west-side conditions are 
represented within it. The valley in this latitude is contracted 
somewhat, so that its width is greater both to the north and to the 
south than here. 

South of Tuolumne River and east of the San Joaquin, the canals 
of the Turlock irrigation district supply gravity water to a large part 
of the valley; and north of the Tuolumne the canals of the Modesto 
district supply the west-central part of the county from a point 
about 8 miles east of Modesto to San Joaquin River. West of the 
San Joaquin the low^er line of the San Joaquin and Kings River canal 
system extends to the vicinity of Crows Landing. Under these canal 
S3^stems much alfalfa is raised, dairying is an important and growing 
industry, and there is an increasing acreage devoted to fruit raising 
and diversified farming. Outside of the irrigated district the greater 
part of the valley lands are in grain, both w^heat and barley being 
raised, although here, as in other parts of the Great Valley, the pro- 
duction is less than formerly. Along the San Joaquin the flooded 
bottoms and the neighboring alkali lands are used for grazing. 

Less use is made of underground waters in this county than in any 
part of the valley. The rainfall is sufficient, so that grain raising 
has been successful in the past, and irrigation, therefore, has not been 
absolutely necessary in order that the valley lands might be utilized, 
and the pressure for irrigation therefore has not been as intense as in 
the more strictly arid sections farther south. Furthermore, the sur- 
face supply is more nearly adequate than in many of the counties, 
and the limits of productivity through the use of the cheap gravity 
waters have not been reached, because the Turlock and Modesto 
districts are not yet fully developed. The needs that result from a 
combination of such complete aridity that crop production is impos- 
sible wdthout irrigation and full utilization of all surface w^aters that 
are available, are not as yet operative in Stanislaus County, and there 
has not yet been an influx of the type of settler who is content to de- 
velop small farm units intensively in the way that is resulting in such 
successful use of small pumping plants as prevails about Stockton 
and Lodi. 



48 GKOUITD WATERS OF SAN^ JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

FLOWING WELLS. 

The Survey has records of only 5 flowing wells in the county. 
These are near the southern boundary, and most of them are west of 
San Joaquin River. Only one, that on the McDermott estate, 
northeast of Newman, is used for irrigation. The others furnish 
supplies for stock. The water from all of these wells contains an 
excess of saline matter in solution, so that it must be used with care. 

Because of the meager development, the limits of the area within 
which flowing waters are to be expected can not be determined with 
certainty. Nor are these limits of as much importance here as farther 
south in the valley, because the flowing wells will yield rather mea- 
gerly, their waters will be of poor quality generally, and the flowing- 
well area will be confined to a zone of low land along the axis of the 
valley, much of which is subject to overflow and some of which is 
alkaline. 

The settlers along the west side — owners of fertile, alkali-free soils, 
capable of immense production if water could be applied to them, 
but practically limited under present conditions to dry crops — are 
as a matter of course deeply interested in the possibility of securing 
irrigation water from any source. The streams that flow from the 
west-side hills toward the valley are wet-weather streams of slight 
flow and can not be considered as sources of irrigation water. 

The San Joaquin and Kings River canal system may be capable of 
slight extension when irrigation practice on the lands under it im- 
proves; but at best it can serve only a small additional acreage. It 
is probable that pumping systems will eventually be installed to lift 
water directly from the San Joaquin to apply to those west-side lands 
that are within 40 or 50 feet of the low-water level in the river. 
Pumping plants may also be installed in the lower west-side lands to 
pump ground waters, but the lift will be nearly as great as from the 
river and the water will be of inferior quality, since all of the west-side 
ground waters contain notable quantities of salts and some of them 
approach the limit of usability for irrigation. 

PUMPING PLANTS. 

Pumping plants for irrigation are practically unknown in this 
county, but one or two being in operation. They are used, however, 
to supply the stations of the Pacific Coast Oil Company, the railroads, 
and the domestic supply for the city of Modesto. Ground waters 
are accessible with moderate hfts throughout the west half of the 
east slope of the valley, and as irrigation progresses under the gravity 
systems and the water plane rises, it will become increasingly desira- 
ble as a means of drainage as well as a source of auxiliary or inde- 
pendent gravity waters. That intensive cultivation and careful 
methods will make it as practicable here as it is elsewhere in the 
valley, scarcely needs affirmation. 



CONDITIONS IN SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY. . 49 

SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY. 
GENERAL CONDITIONS. 

San Joaquin County is, with the exception of small areas in Ala- 
meda and Contra Costa, the northernmost of those counties whose 
valley lands belong to the southern division of the great central 
lowland of Cahfornia. Because of its latitude and its position near 
the gateway that opens to the Pacific, it diflPers greatly climatically 
from the southern counties of the valley. Its temperatures are not 
as high and do not fluctuate through as wide a range (monthly 
averages vary from 46.5° in January to 72.5° in July and August), 
its rainfall is greater, amounting to about 15.5 inches, and its per- 
centage of foggy days exceeds that of Kern, Tulare, and other of the 
southern counties. Furthermore, situated as it is along the lower 
San Joaquin, it includes a tidal section of that stream and a large 
area that is subject to inundation when the Sacramento is in flood, 
and a still larger section subject to overflow when floods in the San 
Joaquin and its tributaries occur at the same time as those of the 
Sacramento. The county, therefore, includes a part of that Central 
Cahfornia area, whose problems of reclamation, drainage, and navi- 
gation involve in so complete and fascinating a way all of the phases 
of hydraulic engineering. The rivers must be improved and con- 
trolled for navigation purposes, the lowlands must be protected from 
floods and drained, while the higher bordering parts of the valley 
lands, too dry to produce the more valuable crops although suited 
to grain raising, require irrigation for their fullest development. This 
threefold problem belongs typically to the Sacramento Valley, but 
it requires solution also in that of the lower San Joaquin. 

The Stanislaus Water Company takes its supply of water from the 
Stanislaus near Knights Ferry and irrigates an area of several thou- 
sand acres along the southern border of the county in the Escalon 
and Manteca districts. In the Lodi and Stockton districts the sys- 
tems of the Stockton and Mokelumne Irrigating Company and the 
Woodbridge Canal and Irrigation Company supply surface waters to 
limited areas. Within the island district, west and north of Stock- 
ton, where reclamation has been accompHshed by the construction 
of protective levees, water is sometimes admitted within the dikes 
during high-water periods in the streams for irrigation purposes, but 
as subirrigation is effectual throughout the greater part of these 
areas, surface irrigation is rarely necessary. The higher lands of the 
valley slopes, both along the east and west sides, are devoted to 
grain raising, as some of them have been for almost half a century. 
No water is applied to them. There is no uniformity as to practice 
among the vineyardists, some of them irrigating their vines, others 
preferring that they be not irrigated. 
57280— iRR 222—08 4 



50 GKOUND WATEES OF SA]^ JOAQUJN VALLEY. 

FLOWING WELLS. 

San Joaquin County includes the northern portion of the great 
central artesian zone of the valley, but as this zone is less important 
in its northern part, hoth because of the inferior yield of wells there 
and because of the greater proportion of water of poor quahty ob- 
tained from them, there has been relatively little development for 
irrigation purposes or domestic supply. Twenty-nine records have 
been obtained and these are beHeved to include all of the flowing 
wells in the country districts and nearly ail of those in the city of 
Stockton. Only six of these supply water that is suitable for irri- 
gating purposes and the yield of these is small. By far the greater 
number of the flowing wells have been drilled for the gas they yield. 
In all such wells, the water with which the gas occurs is sahne and 
is allowed to waste, since it is not usable for drinking purposes or 
for irrigation. 

The few artesian wells that furnish water of good quahty not only 
yield small supphes but are expensive because of their considerable 
depth. Those of which records are available are from 975 to 1,200 
feet deep Wells of lesser depths do not yield flows, and those with 
greater depths, at least in the Stockton neighborhood, yield saline 
waters and gas. Farther west than Stockton, nearer the axis of the 
valley, it is probable that the water, even from shallow wells, would 
be alkahne. It will be realized that under these conditions flowing 
wells are not of value for irrigation purposes in the county, despite 
the rather large area over which flows may be obtained. 

PUMPING PLANTS. 

During the last few years irrigation by the use of pumped waters 
has become an important factor in the development of the east side 
of San Joaquin County. Around Lathrop and French Colony, in 
the district east of Stockton and in the country about Lodi, a large 
number of plants have been installed and new wells are being sunk 
and new plants put in operation constantly. 

This development is of a most promising type. Most of the plants 
are small and the acreage irrigated by each is limited. This means 
small holdings, intensive cultivation, and eventually relatively dense 
settlement. The average recorded horsepower of 193 plants is only 
6.2. Of the 193 plants 138 develop from 2 to 8 horsepower, while 42 
are equipped with engines developing from 10 to 15 horsepower. 
One hundred and eighty-seven gas engines are in use, thirteen plants 
use motors, and two are operated by steam. 

One hundred and thirty-seven owners of plants report a total of 
1,455 acres, an average of only 10.6 acres each. The cost of 106 of 



t ^Ji m 



CONDTTTONS IN SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY. 51 

the plants is reported by the owners as $64;983, an average cost of 
S613 each. These facts indicate the small scale and individualistic 
character of the development. 

The power companies charge a uniform rate of 3| cents per horse- 
power per hour. This is higher than the fuel charge in the gas plants, the 
reported average in 12 plants for the summer of 1906 being 1.45 cents 
per horsepower per hour, but labor and installation, both of which are 
heavier charges in the gas plants, tend to equalize the difference. 
Water as developed in these small plants seems to cost the users from 
$1.50 to as much as $3 or $4 per acre-foot. 

Generally water is delivered from the pumping plants to the acre- 
age served through earth ditches, and where the soil is sandy and 
porous this method results in much waste. 

The pumping-plant wells are comparatively shallow, and hence 
are very much cheaper than the deep wells necessary to secure arte- 
sian flows. The average depth of somewhat more than 100 wells, 
taken at random from the records, is about 80 feet. Another group 
of 20 wells average only 40 feet in depth. These latter wells are 
equipped with small pumping plants, developing an average of 5 
horsepow^er each, and the water which they yield is ample. 

The wells are particularly cheap because it has been found that in 
many parts of the area it is not necessary to case them, or at least 
they must be cased only to slight depths. Twelve pumping-plant 
wells are reported as without any casing; 24 others were only partially 
cased, the pipe in these varying in length from a few joints to three- 
fourths or seven-eighths of the entire depth of the well. 

The windmill has been an important factor in the past in irrigation 
in the Stockton district, and although it is being rapidly superseded 
by the small pumping plant, it is still extensive^ used, especially in 
the vegetable garden and fruit districts east and northeast of Stock- 
ton, Its chief disadvantage, of course, is the uncertainty of the wind. 
It is not unusual to see a well equipped both with a small gas engine 
and a large windmill, the engine being used when the wind fails. The 
wheels used are of wood and of local manufacture, from 18 to 22 feet 
in diameter, and cost comxplete with the tower from $175 to $200. 

Much of the gardening and fruit for the San Francisco market is in 
the hands of Italian immigrants, who, after giving the windmill a 
thorough trial, are now abandoning it in favor of the more reliable 
small gas engine. 

Irrigation by pumping, of the general type practiced about Stock- 
ton and Lodi, could be extended with great advantage throughout a 
large acreage, now without water, between the Mokelumne andTejon 
Pass, but to be practiced successfully it will require a different spirit 
from that which as yet largely dominates the West. The promoting 



52 GROUND WATERS OF SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 

and speculative spirit, the desire to get rich overnight, to control 
large holdings, and to avoid personal labor, will have to be super- 
seded by a willingness to be satisfied with sure but moderate returns, 
to be content with small farm units, and to attain personal independ- 
ence through individual effort. It is to be hoped that the American 
citizen of the generations to come will prove willing to accept these 
conditions and that in the future dependence need not be placed upon 
our adopted citizens for detailed development of this desirable type. 

O 



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